Free Software – Phase 2 its out there.
After completing my last TMR which was based on the performance of solar thermal systems and the comparison of land cost. Before I started this TMR solar power to me was simply Photovoltaic (PV) cells, but after a lot of research it was evident that this was probably the worst type of harvesting of solar energy. The main problem I had with my TMR was the systems themselves are extremely complex, for example a Parabolic trough which heats liquified nitrile salts, to a working temperature of around 1500 deg C and running a Rankine cycle steam turbine combined system is rather complex. To compare these systems would be far too much work to be able to fit within one TMR.
This is where free software is the key, I personally have found getting enough raw analysis within a TMR has been hard at times, some times due to the complexity of the subject which I have chosen to discuss and sometimes lack of knowledge and capability. However using free software this can be alleviated, you can complete great research and using such a tool as the American Government package called System Advisor Model (SAM) which the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have developed (https://sam.nrel.gov/content/sam-publications) you can use such packages to do the raw theoretical analysis which is required and this leaves you to draw the key information and complete true analysis of the data.
There is tons of free software out there and in terms of renewable stuff the NREL is great and if you need any other help with this subject Mark Hill is the man. I hope this helps Phase 2 a little as I know I was stuck a couple of time of how I can do a real comparison of different systems.
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Ollie
Good point, well made – phase 2 should help you extend your understanding and allow you the ability to do some in depth research, excel is never going to be the best analytical tool and you can spend a lot of time trying to put a spreasheet together thereby limiting time for producing a quality TMR in a busy schedule. Ever since the US open government move publicly funded software has been made freely available for research work and, as you point out, there is a wealth of software available. I wasn’t aware of SAM and have now added a link to it on our CAE module.
For energy analysis and renewables try NREL and EERE (http://www1.eere.energy.gov/analysis/index.html) which are very good sources – for groundwater and water resources you should also look to bookmark the USGS (http://water.usgs.gov/software/lists/)
A caveat for all of this software has to be that some of it takes time to learn, you are quite often given a software suite with minimal pre and post processing capabilities but then surely that’s half the fun?!
Mark