irradiance.globalinplane appears redundant with total_irrad

[cwhanse]

Suggest removing globalinplane.

[wholmgren]

I think they're different, but I'm struggling to think of a good use case for globalinplane.

globalinplane computes POA global from modeling intermediates (AOI, DNI, POA diffuse).

total_irrad computes POA components from more basic information (system specs, solar position, DNI, GHI, DHI).

[jforbess]

I am mixed on this, because I have used both, but not necessarily for a good reason, just because of whichever tutorial I was copying at the time. I think I prefer globalinplane because I occasionally have need to modify the intermediates rather than use the default assumptions. Also, does total_irrad work with tracking? I can't remember off the top of my head.

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On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 10:32 AM, Will Holmgren ***@***.***> wrote: I think they're different, but I'm struggling to think of a good use case for globalinplane. globalinplane computes POA global from modeling intermediates (AOI, DNI, POA diffuse). total_irrad computes POA components from more basic information (system specs, solar position, DNI, GHI, DHI). — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#422 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AH66AaO9XT6XKWkaCgfvmX52M4K75nHtks5tUIPbgaJpZM4SCliW> .

[wholmgren]

total_irrad accepts scalar (fixed) or vector (tracking) surface azimuth and tilt. It does not automatically compute tracking angles, though.

My post above was a bit misleading. I suggested that globalinplane returns only POA global, but it actually returns POA global, POA direct, and POA diffuse (total). We could probably come up with a better name for globalinplane. Something like poa_components.

Thinking through this a little more... total_irrad does 3 things:

First, total_irrad provides a unified interface to the various diffuse sky models. This aspect could be refactored into a separate function (get_diffuse?) and used within total_irrad.

Second, total_irrad calls the grounddiffuse function.

Third, total_irrad assembles the POA components into a data structure (DataFrame or OrderedDict). total_irrad could be refactored to use a renamed globalinplane internally. The renamed globalinplane would need to include the sky diffuse and ground diffuse to its output for API consistency.

So, total_irrad would be reduced to a wrapper for the 3 steps described above. It would not do any calculations itself.

While we're at it, I'd welcome suggestions for a better name than total_irrad.

[cwhanse]

I think those ideas are good, reduce total_irrad to a wrapper, and refactor the wrapped functions. My instinctive reaction to 'total_irrad' is 'get_irradiance_components'

I like function names that start with verbs.

[cwhanse]

Closed via #427