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I am looking through the SAM and CEC DBs for inverter and module types, as I am looking to do some forecasts.

As I don't find the correct types (SMA 2200CP and Canadian Solar CS6X310M), is there another resource to pull that data or can I create an addition to the dataframe when I export it from pvlib in python?

I am new, so please feel to correct me at any point.

Rivers31334
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pvlib-python should update their cec libraries, but in the meantime, you can download SAM from sam.nrel.gov, and access their updated libraries packaged with the newest version (2017.01.17 as of this writing). You can then specify those local files with the retrieve_sam function.

Note that the sam.nrel.gov website lists their libraries to be downloaded separately, but those are not the most recent versions. Probably the reason that the pvlib-python libraries haven't been updated is that they just check those files.

j4-
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  • Thanks for this advice. Specifically to getting updated libraries via SAM (which I have downloaded), how would I call for that in the `retrieve_sam` call? I see that I can pass in a filepath to `retrieve_sam` but how would I get to the library within the SAM software after I have downloaded it (assuming that SAM doesn't query a library itself). – Rivers31334 May 17 '17 at 17:23
  • Good question. On a Mac, I control clicked on the .App file to check out the Contents of the package, and found CEC Modules.csv and CEC Inverters.csv under the libraries folder. I then copied those csv files to a subdirectory in my python world, and referenced those copies from pvlib-python. – j4- May 18 '17 at 19:01