PVWatts-style production estimation inputs, the full derate factor cascade (soiling, shading, wiring losses, inverter efficiency), performance ratio, and how a credible energy model feeds directly into financial analysis.
Every financial promise made about a renewable energy project — payback period, IRR, a PPA price — ultimately rests on one number: credibly estimated annual energy production. This module works through NREL PVWatts-style modeling inputs, the individual derate factors (soiling, shading, wiring losses, mismatch, inverter efficiency, degradation) that separate STC nameplate capacity from real-world AC output, performance ratio as an apples-to-apples efficiency metric, and P50/P90 production risk notation.
By the end of this module you should be able to explain why skipping the derate cascade routinely overstates production by 20% or more, calculate a system's performance ratio, and describe why an energy modeling error compounds directly into every downstream financial metric — the exact handoff Module 13's financial analysis builds on.