A privately-held Swiss corporation that is a pioneer in the field of software solutions for the renewable energy sector, Vela Solaris AG is one of the leaders in the global market, combining software innovation with expertise in renewable energy – with a particular focus on solar. We caught up with the company’s visionary Managing Director, Andreas Witzig.
PES: Welcome to PES magazine. Would you like to introduce the company to our readers and explain how you serve the PV industry in Europe?
Andreas Witzig: Vela Solaris is a spin-off from the University of Rapperswil in Switzerland, and with our commercial software Polysun we provide a planning tool for the solar industry – last year Polysun had its 20th anniversary. Originally the software only served the solar thermal community, but for several years we now also provide a comprehensive photovoltaic feature set.
The Polysun database contains all PV modules and inverters on the market and it proposes an optimised string plan for a given roof. New features cover local storage in batteries and a range of smart-grid applications.
PES: Can you outline a few of the benefits of Polysun?
AW: Polysun calculates future revenues of a PV field including advanced topics such as module temperature, wind-chill and shading. Furthermore, PV self-consumption optimisation with the use of rechargeable batteries is supported in a practical way based on a thorough and precise calculation.
Polysun pursues a system approach which adds the power control to the analysis (while many other methods are solely focused on the component level). In particular, Polysun also supports PV systems which include heating such as in the design of zero energy buildings when solar power is used to drive a heat pump or active load balancing.
PES: On your website you also offer a browser based online version of your software. How is it different from the standalone version?
AW: The browser based online version of Polysun is a result of our market analysis with regards to de-centralised energy
production on rooftops. Very often it is the home owner who initiates the installation of solar energy systems. Offering Polysun as an internet service rather than delivering a software package to be installed on the user’s computer, significantly lowers the barrier for using simulation in an early planning stage.
Polysun Online Basic is a free version for a broad user community ranging from house owners to architects and energy consultants.
Polysun Online Premium is a professional tool suitable for expert users that need the simulation capability not very often. The payment scheme of Polysun Online Premium allows renting our services for a limited time, e.g. when a customer project is in progress. Since there is no installation required and the handling though the browser interface is very easy it requires no initial learning effort. We offer the Polysun calculation kernel in several ways: Not only is Polysun available as an online version, but also as a plugin for other software packages such as DDS-CAD or Solar.Pro.Tool.
