The tool has been developed specifically to help solar PV installers meet the requirements of the MCS installer standard ‘Guide to the installation of Photovoltaic Systems’ (2012).
The tool is designed to take information about the proposed system either by selecting a number of specific PV panels from its database, or by entering the system size or available roof area.
From the postcode, orientation and inclination of the PV array, the tool calculates the irradiance value for that region from the MCS lookup tables.
If there is shading apparent on-site then it allows you to enter the measured coordinates of the shading objects from which it generates an MCS horizon chart and calculates the shading factor.
You can enter more detail about the installation (for example, the proportion of electricity that will be used on-site and an installation cost) and the tool then calculates the performance of the system following the MCS methodology and the financial returns using the latest Feed-in Tariff rates.
The results are available to download as a PDF, including the horizon chart showing the shading objects if shading is apparent. All of the relevant MCS disclaimers are automatically added to the PDF.
For further details, please contact Sameer Shirodkar on sameer.shirodkar@encraft.co.uk