September 25th, 2025

PlantPredict

New Features and Improvements!

New Electrical Shading Effect Model: We’ve introduced a new non-linear Electrical Shading Effect model “Step Fractional Electrical Shading” which provides improved modeling of the non-linear effect of partial shading on modules and strings than the legacy “Fractional Electrical Shading” model. Currently, this new model is only available in Version 12 within the 3D Calculation Settings but will be rolled out more broadly in an upcoming release. When selected, the user is prompted for the Number of Horizontal Step Fractions per Bay. This input creates a number of “fractional partitions” within the bay and is intended to model the shade response behavior of series/parallel connected bypass diode circuits of module strings. Additional documentation and guidance will be provided in the coming weeks on how this functions. For now, the following guidance is recommended:

Cell Material / Bypass Diode Arrangement	Module Configuration	Recommended 3D Direct Shading Model	Recommended Number of Horizontal Step Fractions per Bay
Thin Film (i.e., First Solar Series 6 or 7)	Portrait	Linear	N/A
Silicon / Full Cell (3-Bypass Diodes)	1 Up Portrait	Step Fractional Electrical Shading	1
Silicon / Half-Cut Cell (3-Bypass Diodes)	1 Up Portrait	Step Fractional Electrical Shading	2
Silicon / Half-Cut Cell (3-Bypass Diodes)	2 Up Portrait	Step Fractional Electrical Shading	4
Silicon / Full Cell or Half-Cut Cell (3-Bypass Diodes)	1 Up Landscape	Step Fractional Electrical Shading	3
Silicon / Full Cell or Half-Cut Cell (3-Bypass Diodes)	2 Up Landscape	Step Fractional Electrical Shading	6
Silicon / Full Cell or Half-Cut Cell (3-Bypass Diodes)	4 Up Landscape	Step Fractional Electrical Shading	12

3D Scene File Process Loader: When uploading PVC files into PlantPredict, we’ve added a new file process loader to better communicate loading time.

3D Transposition calculations are now operational for Fixed-Tilt systems.
Including the Bounding Box Simplification of 3D objects within the 3D shade scene calculations previously had no effect but is now implemented and working correctly.
The Module Irradiance Loss within the loss tree was incorrectly being reported when 3D scene calculations were run. This did not affect the total energy yield but did affect the Module Irradiance Loss magnitude in the Loss Tree. This has now been fixed.
Corrected an issue where 3D scene calculations would fail if DNI or DHI were not present in the weather data.
Corrected several file formatting issues related to user-defined tracker angle schedules for 3D scenes that were generating errors when being uploaded or when used in the 3D calculations.

Rack and Pile Summary Tables: Rack Type (Wind Exposure) and Pile Summary data tables have been added to the viewer Right Pane menu:

Pile Configurator Imported / Wind Exposure Data View: It is now possible to toggle between Imported and Wind Exposure Pile Bins in the spatial viewer:
View Rack Wind Exposure: It is now possible to view wind exposure per rack using the On/Off Toggle with Rack Projection’s turned on:

When importing Terrain Pro Datasets in imperial units (feet), the legends of several Terrain Pro viewer heatmaps displayed incorrectly as meters. This has been fixed.
Corrected a units issue within the Terrain Pro viewer for Pile Data where the legends and Top of Pile and Pile Reveal values were in incorrect units of measure. This has been fixed.
Corrected an issue with the download / export function for the Earthwork CSV Collection which was previously not generating the file for download.