Generate (simulate) hourly solar production data

Hi. I am an enthusiastic new user of the model. In the "data tables" for a select project I have been able to generate system generated power by hour to obtain 8760 data points which I assume represent the P50, or expected, values. I am trying to discern whether I can generate the same data, e.g. by hour representing the P90 values?  Appreciate any feedback. 

Hi Lucian,

SAM's time series results in SAM depend on the weather data you use for the simulation. If you use a "typical meteorological year" weather file, then the results are similar to P50 results. For more about different kinds of weather data, see the best practices handbook referenced here:

sam.nrel.gov/weather-data/weather-data-publications.html

If you have a collection of weather files representing the solar resource over multiple years, you can also use SAM's P50/P90 feature to calculate P50 values of annual energy and other metrics. You can find a paper on P50/P90 analysis in SAM at the page I linked above, and a video demonstrating how to use it here:

sam.nrel.gov/simulation-options.html

Best regards,
Paul.