Under the Hood of the Beam Solar Assessment

When you run an Assessment on the Beam Solar Platform we use a combination of electricity data from your energy retailer, local weather-station data and satellite imagery to simulate hundreds of solar and battery combinations on an hourly basis for a year. The simulation calculates the capital cost, annual savings and financial return from each combination, enabling us to find the optimal renewable energy system for your site.

 

 

One of the first questions we need to answer in order to simulate potential solar systems is how many panels we can physically fit on the site and how they would be mounted. It often makes the most economical and environmental sense to build rooftop solar in Australia and more than 360,000 customers had solar panels installed on their roofs last year. However there are many sites without a usable or large enough roof so the panels will need to be mounted on purpose-built racking. We might also want to maximise our output by tracking the sun or even build carpark or floating solar.

 

We build up a dataset of potential solar configurations for a site that looks something like this:

 

	kW	Tilt	Azimuth	Panel Type
Field Segment 1	100	15	35	Rooftop (Flush Mounted)
Field Segment 2	150	15	35	Single Axis Tracking
Field Segment 3	200	15	35	Carpark Shade

 

We automate the process wherever possible, using datasets of buildings and addresses combined with estimation algorithms, or one of our engineers maps the site by hand.

 

 

The Beam Solar Platform is not only used for assessing the viability of renewable energy systems but it is also a marketplace and procurement system. The best suppliers in the industry, rigorously vetted by us, submit offers through our platform, giving us a unique window into price movements in the industry. With this combination of public and private pricing data, we are able to make an accurate price estimation for each potential solar system.

 

 

A key part of determining the optimum size and mounting of your solar arrays is an estimation of their power generation over the course of a year. We use hourly solar irradiance data from nearby weather stations to predict the generation of each panel configuration, taking into account factors such as the size of the panels, the panel type and their orientation to the sun.

 

While it sometimes makes financial sense to build the largest solar and battery system possible, often we want to match power generation with power consumption. We collect half-hourly electricity data from your energy retailer (shown in blue) combined with our solar generation estimates (shown in orange), giving us a complete picture of electricity inputs and outputs to your site.

 

 

Electricity costs vary significantly from place to place in Australia, depending on the source of power, distance it needs to travel, economies of scale and many other factors. We use the most recent bill from a site's energy retailer combined with estimates of future rates to build an electricity cost profile like the one below:

 

We combine all of the available information for your site, as well as our predictions, estimations and calculations, into an assessment report. You can also explore the data from the Beam Solar Platform and even drill down to see what any of our suggested systems will do on any hour of the year.

 

We all need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and we're here to help you do it. Our experienced team can help you determine the viability of solar and batteries for your business and help you procure it from the best suppliers. To get started, get in touch with one of Beam's Solar Experts or start a Beam Solar Assessment by clicking the button below: