Enhancement Request: Grid Power Connection Limit

Hi
Could the addition of a Fixed Grid Power Connection Limit (AC kW) be consider?

I have searched the Forums, and this feature doesn't seem to exist?

Thanks 

Hi Mark,

We are working on enhancements to SAM's financial models, including the addition of an interconnection limit. To track progress on that work, see the (somewhat cryptically worded) issue in SAM's GitHub Issues:

github.com/NREL/SAM/issues/183

Let me know if you have any specific suggestions of how you would like to see that implemented, or if you can provide links to any documentation of a particular connection limit policy that you would like to model in SAM.

Best regards,
Paul.

Hi Paul

Thanks for the response. 

Firstly, a fixed AC Power limit would be helpful to, in-part, model impositions made upon specific projects by the connection authority - The "transfer capacity", a MW limit that cannot be exceeded.

Unfortunately, to go deeper is probably not in your remit for us here in Australia . In Australia, each intermittent generator is treated on a case-to-case basis under the framework in Chapter 5 of the National Electricity Rules (  www.aemc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-07/5.%20Network%20Connection%20Access%2C%20Planning%20and%20Expansion⁠.pdf  ). This entails additional output restrictions based upon at least active power, voltage and frequency droop controls as well as complying with AEMO’s dispatch constraint equations for system normal, contingency events and system strength. This all probably means some post processing of the results.

Regards
Mark

Thanks, Mark. We'll take that into consideration for the next version of SAM.

Best regards,
Paul.

This would be helpful for us as well.  We are finding that it sometimes makes financial sense to oversize the inverters and then software limit their output.  This sometimes allows us to maintain the inverter output that we need at higher operating temperatures.  

Thanks.

Thank you for the suggestion. I have updated the GitHub Issue linked in my message above to include your comments.

Best regards,
Paul.