Creating off-grid system through SCC

emiliano casati
Topic Author

01 Nov 2018 14:17 #6489 by emiliano casati

Creating off-grid system through SCC was created by emiliano casati

Dears,
before i dig into it, I'd like to have your confirmation that I understood right: it is possible to access the SAM source code through the SSC repository files, modify it, and then rebuild the whole application with GUI and everything.
Am I correct?

My purpose is to build an off-grid CSP system, which produces electricity following an imposed load request.

Let me know, and thanks in advance

Emiliano

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Paul Gilman

02 Nov 2018 15:16 #6490 by Paul Gilman

Replied by Paul Gilman on topic Creating off-grid system through SCC

Dear Emiliano,

Yes, you can build a complete version of SAM, including the user interface, by following the instructions on the Wiki page of the SAM repository on GitHub.com:

github.com/nrel/sam/wiki

Note that the download features that require API keys will not work unless you modify the private.h file that contains those keys.

In the Wiki, You can also find links to the contribution policies, which you should follow if you would like NREL to consider including any features you develop in the NREL version of SAM.

Best regards,
Paul.

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Jialei

14 Jun 2019 08:26 #7458 by Jialei

Replied by Jialei on topic Creating off-grid system through SCC

Hi, Paul, I'm new one for SAM, about Api keys I got confused.
My situation is, I want to build own version by SAM source code and I did as wiki content, but SAM user interface always showed "Please setup API keys, see private.h for details..." ,(I have filled with information of Google_API_KEY, BING_API_KEY, DEVELOPER_API_KEY.)

My problem is:
1. what is sam_api_key?
The code annotation shows "API keys for SAM to use with developer.nrel.gov services." That's the same as Developer API?
2. When I modified the private.h file and saved, do I need to do any other things to let it work?
Now, I have modified the private.h file, but it didn't work. And also, I found a bug(battery storage model cannot be selected), I'm not sure whether it is true bug or just caused by api key setting.

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Paul Gilman

17 Jun 2019 15:55 #7462 by Paul Gilman

Replied by Paul Gilman on topic Creating off-grid system through SCC

Hi Jialei,

I moved this thread to the SAM Open Source category.

The sam_api_key and DEVELOPER_API_KEY variables both store keys from developer.nrel.gov. You can search the code to find where those keys are used. It probably makes sense to change that to use a single variable named something like NREL_DEVELOPER_API_KEY and key to avoid confusion.

Can you provide more information about what happened when you modified private.h? All you should need to do is insert valid keys between the quotes to make the API calls active, assuming you can access the APIs from your computer and location.

The webapis.conf file in the runtime folder lists the URLs SAM uses for API calls.

Best regards,
Paul.

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Jialei

18 Jun 2019 09:19 #7466 by Jialei

Replied by Jialei on topic Creating off-grid system through SCC

Thanks for your response. As I said before I modified and saved, and I restarted the software, but the front end still showed "Please setup API keys, see private.h for details...". The private file I modified is shown as below(hide some part of keys). If you want to see the actual keys, we could contact in email.

// can be used to indicate specialized releases for particular testers, i.e. 'iscc-ge'
// by default, should be NULL
static const char *version_label = 0; //"iscc-ge"; 
// API keys for SAM to use with developer.nrel.gov services.
const char *sam_api_key ="3973a0b5-0875-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX";
// Google APIs:
// login to developer api console at: https://code.google.com/apis/console
static const char *GOOGLE_API_KEY = "AIzaSyA5jY-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX";
// Bing Map APIs:
// login to account center at: https://www.bingmapsportal.com/
static const char *BING_API_KEY = "AmX94Ku2evXP38F17pMlNc1CjC1cXXXXXXXXX_XXXX";
// Developer APIs:
// login to account center at: https://developer.nrel.gov/
static const char *DEVELOPER_API_KEY = "YwwEGrXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX";

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Paul Gilman

18 Jun 2019 20:41 - 25 Jun 2019 18:35 #7469 by Paul Gilman

Replied by Paul Gilman on topic Creating off-grid system through SCC

Hi Jialei,

The Welcome page should not show the message about setting up API keys if when you set the value of sam_api_key. You can see that around Line 234 of welcome.cpp:

github.com/NREL/SAM/blob/develop/src/welcome.cpp

If you create a PVWatts case, can you download a weather file on the Location and Resource page?

Best regards,
Paul.

Last edit: 25 Jun 2019 18:35 by Paul Gilman.

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