Can I translate my analyses internationally?

Is there a way I can create SAM analyses in different parts of the world? I'm specifically interested in doing so within West Africa- but I'm not sure how to find a) applicable data, or b) what (if any) US area might be the most comparable.

any suggestions?

Hello,
SAM's performance models are not region-specific, so you can use them to model a system in any part of the world, as long as you have a weather file for the system's location. For more on this, please see SAM's Help system, which you can get to from the Help menu in SAM. Here are links to the relevant Help topics in the copy of the Help system we've posted on the website:

• 
  SAM Help - Weather Overview
• 
  SAM Help - Weather File Formats
• 
  SAM Help - Weather Data Online

For a very preliminary analysis of a solar energy system in West Africa, you could use a weather file for a different location with a similar latitude and climate (desert, coastal, etc.), but that would only give you a very rough estimate of the system's performance. There are solar maps that have been prepared by various organizations that give an indication of the solar resource and potential production of a solar energy system that you could use to help evaluate the results of your analysis.
The financial models are more U.S.-specific, but are general enough to be useful to analyze renewable energy projects outside of the U.S. The default cost assumptions are for typical projects in the U.S., so you would need to change most or all of those for a project in West Africa or elsewhere. If you are early on in your analysis, you could roughly estimate your project costs using SAM's default values with an adjustment using a cost multiplier to account for transportation and importation costs. The financial equations, particularly for taxes and incentives are appropriate for U.S. projects, but again, are general enough to be useful for non-U.S. projects.
One question we frequently get is about units (currency and other) -- it is not possible to change the units in SAM, so if you model a project using a currency other than dollars, you should 1) be careful to change the currency values on all of the input pages (System Cost, Financing, Incentives, Utility Rate, etc.) , and 2) treat the dollar sign as a currency marker for your currency. Also, for some currencies the number of digits may exceed the width we've allowed for values in certain parts of the user interface. In general it is probably best to convert all currency amounts to dollars.
Best regards,

Paul.