How much power could you generate in your backyard?
Feb. 5, 2010
A new DoE online calculator helps you figure it out.
The DoE's In My Backyard (IMBY) online tool estimates solar photovoltaic (PV) array and wind turbine electricity production based on your specifications of system size, location, and other variables. IMBY uses a Google Maps interface to let you choose a system location with pinpoint accuracy. It then draws data for that location from one of NREL's renewable resource databases to estimate your potential electricity production.
IMBY can estimate the production you can expect from a PV array or wind turbine, but it cannot tell you if such a system is right for you. (DoE has other online tools for that.) The In My Backyard solar estimator is based on NREL's PVWatts calculator. However, unlike PVWatts, IMBY provides estimates only for fixed-tilt PV arrays. In addition, IMBY uses Perez data rather than typical meteorological year data. Perez data are satellite-derived, high-resolution data from visible channel images from geostationary satellites (GOES).The In My Backyard wind estimator provides wind electricity estimates for 30 U.S. states with available data. These data are based on AWS Truewind data and mesoscale model simulations and then validated against measured data by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
