PVSizer: A PV & BESS Sizing and Impact Analysis Tool

PVSizer (Alpha Version) is a design tool built on Python and OpenDSS. It offers a comprehensive framework to help engineers and researchers tackle two critical challenges in renewable energy integration:

1. Impact Analysis: Perform detailed time-series simulations to evaluate the impact of specific PV and BESS configurations on the distribution network's performance, such as voltage profiles and equipment loading.
2. Optimal Sizing: Determine the maximum capacity of Photovoltaic (PV) systems and the minimum required capacity of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) without violating grid constraints.

For a complete guide on installation, configuration, and usage, please see the ➡️ Full User Guide.

🚀 Download the Latest Version

The recommended way to get the PVSizer tool is to download the latest official release. This ensures you have a stable, tested version of the code. The source code on the main branch may be under active development and is not recommended for general use.

➡️ Download the Latest Release (v1.1.0-alpha)

Core Features

This tool offers three primary analysis modules

• single_run Performs a detailed 24-hour simulation to evaluate the impact of IBRs on distribution networks for a single, user-defined PV and BESS configuration.
• traversal Conducts a global traversal analysis to map the feasible operating regions for different PV and BESS capacities.
• optimization Utilizes a Constraint-Guided Incremental Search (CGIS) algorithm to efficiently find the optimal PV and BESS sizes that meet all grid constraints.

How to Run

1. Configure Open main20250812.py and set your desired run_mode and other parameters in the UserSettings and Config classes.
2. Execute Run the main script from your terminal

   python main20250812.py

3. Analyze All results, including plots and CSV files, will be saved in the output directory specified in the configuration.

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the EARNEST project.

Authors

Yilu Liu, Yayu(Andy) Yang, Samuel Okhuegbe, Jian Zhang