In brief
PV-GlareCheck checks whether and when a photovoltaic system reflects sunlight in a way that can cause glare for people nearby, such as residents, drivers or pilots. The system and its surroundings are entered on a map in the browser; the simulation covers a full year, and the report shows the duration, times and brightness of the reflections. The result is a software-based screening and does not replace an expert report.
The app consists of the editor, the annual simulation and the interactive report with PDF export. The results do not replace an expert glare report or an assessment by an expert; this is confirmed separately at purchase (Ch. 3).
1.1 Overview
| Area | Features | Chapter |
|---|---|---|
| Projects | Project per PV site via a project token, any number of versions, trash (30 days) | Ch. 4 |
| Location and maps | Address search, project area (3 km radius, cannot be changed afterwards), time zone in standard time, official aerial image or Google, map overlays, measuring | Ch. 5 |
| Terrain | Elevation data from a source chain with the source of each value, elevation grid or best-fit plane, cross tilt also in zones, terrain view, terrain occlusion | Ch. 6 |
| PV areas | Roof-parallel, elevated (roof), facade, ground-mount; dual orientation; single-axis trackers (Pro); excluded areas; import and export as KML | Ch. 7 |
| Module types | Reflection behavior via reflection profile, reflection lobe, reflection offset and intensity zones; custom module types | Ch. 8 |
| Observation points | Groups, single points, points along a line, flight route (Pro), KML; eye height per point; field of view | Ch. 9 |
| Occlusion | Obstacles as polyline, rectangle or circle, also with exact dimensions; terrain from terrain models blocks reflections and shades the PV areas; far-field shading from PVGIS | Ch. 10 |
| Pre-analysis | Reflection directions before the simulation, no token | Ch. 11 |
| Simulation | Every minute of the year with the sun above the horizon, clear sky; one simulation token per run | Ch. 12, Ch. V |
| Variants (Pro) | Batch analyses with up to 20 variants, version comparison, worst-case combination | Ch. 13 |
| Report | Key figures and figures per observation point, filters per group, PDF, image downloads, Excel export (Pro) | Ch. 14 |
| Quality assurance | test cases against formulas, Radiance and second calculations, results per calculation state | Ch. D |
1.2 Free and Pro at a glance
Both plans calculate with the same method and the same temporal resolution. In both plans, projects and simulations are paid for with tokens.
| Free | PV-GlareCheck Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| PV areas per simulation run | 3 | 50 |
| Observation points per simulation run | 30 | 100 |
| Obstacles per simulation run | 10 | 100 |
| Storage | 2 GB | 25 GB |
| Cross tilt, custom module types, field of view, excluded areas, points along lines, pre-analysis, terrain modeling, report and PDF | yes | yes |
| Observation points along flight routes | – | yes |
| Tracked systems (trackers) | – | yes |
| Batch analyses | – | yes |
| Version comparison and worst-case combination | – | yes |
| Excel export of detailed simulation results | – | yes |
Billing and prices: Ch. 3.
1.3 Relation to guidelines
The app does not make an assessment and does not claim conformity with any guideline. It provides key figures and filters with which the requirements of the common guidelines can be represented; Part VI describes which requirement is represented by which setting (Ch. VI.1 residents, Ch. VI.2 roads, Ch. VI.4 air traffic). The default filter values are presets that can be changed or switched off per group. Limits of the model, such as weather, vegetation or standard time, are described in Ch. VII.