Storage support proposal for NumFOCUS Small Development Grants

[Miguel Sánchez de León Peque]

Hi everybody,

As I mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to send a proposal to the NumFOCUS 3rd round of Small Development Grants for 2021. In particular to add support for batteries in pvlib.

The deadline for sending the proposals is September 3rd, so I know there is not much time left, but I would like to hear from you if anybody wants to provide their feedback! ❤️

You can find my proposal draft at:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19w1CKsPuw1E35gXS6AVqvH4moPj1kC7cjDkKlr0_anA

You won't be able to edit, but you will be able to comment. If you prefer to share your feedback in this thread, I'd be happy to hear from you as well! 😊

Any feedback is very much appreciated: changes, additions, English corrections, adjustments to the scope or hours required (if you think my estimations could be way off). I would not mind extending the timeline if it was required to spend more hours, but I would probably be unable to commit more than 8 hours per week (so ~32 hours per month).

Thanks a lot for your help and best regards,

Miguel

[Anton Driesse]

Good initiative!

Anton

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[Anton Driesse]

I really don't know what's expected here, but I wonder whether your initial documentation phase, which I would call planning, is something that the funder might expect to be have been carried prior to making the proposal... 

Anyway maybe it is enough to say you will take some model(s) and capabilities which are currently available only integrated or closed form in other packages, and make them available in modular, open, compatible form in the pvlib toolbox.

Anton

On 2021-08-29 18:31, Miguel Sánchez de León Peque wrote:

Thanks for your support Anton!

If you have any comments/suggestions, do not hesitate to share them with me! Criticism is more than welcome since it will help to increase the chances of the proposal being accepted. 😊

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[Miguel Sánchez de León Peque]

Thanks for your feedback Anton!

Yeah, that is a possibility. I did some quick research prior to writing the proposal, but my estimation is that those 32 hours would be required to better define the scope. Unfortunately, I wont be able to commit those hours before September 3rd. If the proposal gets rejected, I hope I can get their feedback and share it here so that future proposals will be better prepared. 😊

I added a new section about the "team" (for now it is just me and Mohammed, who kindly volunteered to help). If a pvlib core contributor is willing to volunteer as mentor (guidance, API discussion, PR review...), I'd be happy to add them to the list.

Best regards,

Miguel

[Mark Mikofski]

Hi Miguel,

I support of your proposal, and I vote that we move forward. I read through the doc, and spoke to some NF members and they said that 2-3 pages is a good range. I also read through the new SDG page: https://numfocus.org/programs/small-development-grants which has this description as well: " Enough detail should be provided to give reviewers a clear understanding of the proposal’s objective but should not be so lengthy that it puts an undue burden on the evaluation process." From looking at your doc, I believe you've already downloaded the application and word count limits. Also NF members have clarified that you can go ahead and submit the application directly.

Your application looks really good. I will try to make some comments today. The one area I think could be improved is on explaining what Anton already mentioned above, if I understood correctly, why a pure Python implementation is important instead of repurposing a closed source package. I think it's okay to talk about using some time for planning and down-selection, given there's already a rough MVP in the proposal and as long as it's timeboxed, which you listed as 32-hours. So all good. Let me know if there's anything else you need :)

Thanks so much for taking this initiative, and for the other pvlib members who suggested ideas and contributed their time or comments.

Cheers,

Mark

PS in case anyone is interested, there's a list of prior awards on the SDG website, which I've downloaded and attached as CSV

[kevina...@gmail.com]

There is a webinar tomorrow about battery updates in SAM; might be of some interest for this proposal.

> NREL's SAM development team will present and demonstrate improvements and new battery model features for the Fall 2021 version of SAM, including new and improved storage dispatch options, new battery lifetime models, and a new levelized cost of storage (LCOS) financial metric.

https://sam.nrel.gov/events.html

[Miguel Sánchez de León Peque]

Thanks for sharing Kevin!

Can't attend tomorrow, but I'll surely watch it once it is published on YouTube. I already planned to watch all other SAM battery-related videos on YouTube during the use case refinement phase. Even if some are outdated, I am sure they will be useful to understand the difficulties in the development process. 😊

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pvlib-python/992b1da0-5dbb-4400-b5d7-eb232b64abccn%40googlegroups.com.

[Mark Mikofski]

Hi Miguel,

This looks great. I left a comment, but it's not a blocker. I just suggested change pvwatts -> nrel, in case it's too esoteric a reference. Please go ahead and submit directly to NF, and I'll make sure they know to expect it. Fingers crossed!

Thanks,

Mark

[Miguel Sánchez de León Peque]

Thank you everybody for your comments, suggestions and support! ❤️

I updated the proposal with all your feedback and I am planning to submit it in the next 24 hours. If you have any other comments please share them and I'll be happy to take them into account before submitting. 😊

[Miguel Sánchez de León Peque]

Proposal submitted! Attaching a PDF for future reference.

I'll keep you updated with any news. 😊

[Miguel Sánchez de León Peque]

Good news everybody! The proposal was approved. 🎉🎉😊

The committee gave this feedback, for future reference and to hopefully allow the pvlib community to submit better proposals in the future:

Nice proposal and benefit for the PV community. Costs could be justified more clearly. Not clear if the developer has been found or if they remain to be identified. Hopefully someone from the community will be able to take on this work.

According to plan, phase 1 starts in November (use case refinement phase), so I will start preparing during next week! 💪

[Mark Mikofski]

Congratulations! That's great news! Wow! Feel free to use the Wiki: https://github.com/pvlib/pvlib-python/wiki to copy over the proposal for posterity, and I'm sure we're all looking forward to seeing a PR very soon. Are there any milestones or reporting required by NF? Thanks! This is a really great achievement!

[Miguel Sánchez de León Peque]

Thanks Mark! 😊

I don't think there are any required milestones/reporting while the project is ongoing. I think we are on our own now! 💪

However, the SDG page indicates that a final report is required:

> Projects to whom grants have been awarded will be required to submit a report to NumFOCUS describing the work that was performed under the grant and detailing any grant deliverables and outcomes. Reports will be due no later than three months after the close of the one-year period following the award of funds. Reports must be submitted on the Small Development Grants Report Back Form.

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[Miguel Sánchez de León Peque]

I was thinking about how to keep track of this project's progress. I decided to open an issue in the GitHub repository for a couple of reasons:

• To avoid spam (anybody interested can opt-in and subscribe to the issue)
• It is public and accessible for anybody familiar to the project
• Asynchronous communication (specially useful for people in different time zones)
  
• The goal is to open a pull request which would close the issue once integrated

I am currently using GitLab at job for time tracking and organization, but I will keep the GitHub issue updated with any news/ideas/comments/progress. Also, code development will be pushed to a GitHub repository to make it easier for anybody already contributing to pvlib to have a look, comment or even contribute.

Best regards and see you there! 😊