SAM Help
========

This is the user documentation for the System Advisor Model™ (SAM™) developed by the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR).

.. important:: To display SAM Help correctly in the Safari web browser on a Mac, go to Settings, Advanced Settings, and enable **Show features for web developers**. Developer mode is required in Safari to load CSS and Javascript from local files.

See https://sam.nlr.gov for general information about SAM and links to technical references for SAM's performance and financial models

Go to https://sam.nlr.gov/forum to ask questions and get help from the SAM user community and SAM developers.

See https://sam.nlr.gov/releasenotes for version information.

Download SAM for Windows, Mac, and Linux at https://sam.nlr.gov/download. You can also find links to legacy versions of SAM there.

SAM's source code is available at https://github.com/NatLabRockies/SAM.

Software developer tools are available at https://sam.nlr.gov/sdk, and the PySAM Python package is available at https://pysam.readthedocs.io.

Getting Started and Reference
-----------------------------

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: Getting Started and Reference

   introduction/index
   getting-started/index
   reference/index
   window-reference/index
   simulation-options/index
   reference/release_notes

Weather Data
------------

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: Weather Data

   weather-data/index
   weather-file-formats/index

Performance Models
------------------

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: Performance Models

   detailed-photovoltaic-model/index
   pvwatts/index
   high-concentration-photovoltaic/index
   battery-storage/index
   hybrid-systems/index
   wind-power/index
   marine-energy-wave/index
   marine-energy-tidal/index
   solar-water-heating/index
   fuel-cell/index
   biopower/index
   geothermal/index
   custom-generation/index

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power

   csp-empirical-trough-model/index
   csp-physical-trough-model/index
   csp-power-tower-molten-salt/index
   csp-linear-fresnel-direct-steam/index
   csp-linear-fresnel-molten-salt/index
   csp-generic-solar/index
   iph-parabolic-trough/index
   iph-linear-fresnel-direct-steam/index
   iph-linear-fresnel-molten-salt/index
   iph-power-tower-molten-salt/index
   electric-thermal-energy-storage/index
   pumped-thermal-energy-storage/index

Degradation
-----------

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: Degradation

   degradation/index

Grid
----

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: Grid

   grid/index

Financial Models
----------------

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: Financial Models

   installation-costs/index
   operating-costs/index
   financial-parameters/index
   revenue/index
   incentives-and-depreciation/index
   electricity-rates-and-load/index
   thermal-rates-and-load/index

Results
-------

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: Results

   results/index
   financial-metrics/index
   performance-metrics/index

3D Shade Calculator
-------------------

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: 3D Shade Calculator

   shade-calculator-reference/index.rst
   shade-calculator-howto/index.rst