NREL Demonstration: How SAM Can Be Useful to You and How to Use It

This webinar, hosted by Clean Energy States Alliance, will introduce you to the System Advisor Model (SAM) and SAM’s Solar Wizard. SAM is free performance and financial modeling software developed by the US Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) to facilitate decision-making for people involved with or interested in renewable energy development.

SAM makes performance predictions and cost-of-energy estimates for grid-connected power projects based on installation and operating costs and system design parameters that the user specifies as inputs to the model. Projects can be either on the customer side of the utility meter, buying and selling electricity at retail rates, or on the utility side of the meter, selling electricity at a price negotiated through a power purchase agreement (PPA). SAM’s Solar Wizard steps you through the minimum inputs required to model a residential, commercial, or utility-scale solar energy project and displays results to help you get started with the software. Once you have used the wizard a few times and familiarized yourself with the basic inputs and results, you can start using the full model to perform detailed pre-feasibility analyses of renewable energy projects.

Guest Speaker:

• Nate Blair, Group Manager for Energy Forecasting and Modeling at NREL’s Strategic Energy Analysis Center, will be the lead presenter for this webinar explanation and demonstration of SAM.

SAM is available at http://sam.nrel.gov.