In the solar thermal world, aperture area refers to the glass area and gross area refers to the total area (including the frame). In the field of PV the aperture area is often referred to as the 'active' area which does not include the 'dead' area.
It would be a nice feature to be able to distinguish between the two different areas when calculating the shaded fraction. This could be achieved relatively simple, by defining the reference geometry as the the aperture geometry and the geometry of the shading collectors should then be set to the gross area.
If the aperture geometry is simply a single shape smaller than the gross geometry, then the computation of the shaded area should remain the same. However, if the aperture geometry is defined as multiple shapes (such as the example below), then the computation time will be increased significantly.
In the solar thermal world, aperture area refers to the glass area and gross area refers to the total area (including the frame). In the field of PV the aperture area is often referred to as the 'active' area which does not include the 'dead' area.
It would be a nice feature to be able to distinguish between the two different areas when calculating the shaded fraction. This could be achieved relatively simple, by defining the reference geometry as the the aperture geometry and the geometry of the shading collectors should then be set to the gross area.
If the aperture geometry is simply a single shape smaller than the gross geometry, then the computation of the shaded area should remain the same. However, if the aperture geometry is defined as multiple shapes (such as the example below), then the computation time will be increased significantly.