Solar Data Tools Submission

[pluflou]

Submitting Author: Sara Miskovich (@pluflou)
All current maintainers: (@pluflou, @bmeyers)
Package Name: Solar Data Tools
One-Line Description of Package: Library of tools for analyzing photovoltaic power time-series data.
Repository Link: https://github.com/slacgismo/solar-data-tools
Version submitted: 1.6.4
EiC: @cmarmo
Editor: @cmarmo
Reviewer 1: @jinningwang
Reviewer 2: TBD
Archive: TBD
JOSS DOI: TBD
Version accepted: TBD
Date accepted (month/day/year): TBD

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Description

• Include a brief paragraph describing what your package does:
  Solar Data Tools is an open-source Python library for analyzing PV power (and irradiance) time-series data. It provides methods for data I/O, cleaning, filtering, plotting, and analysis. These methods are largely automated and require little to no input from the user regardless of system type—from utility tracking systems to multi-pitch rooftop systems. Solar Data Tools was developed to enable analysis of unlabeled PV data, i.e. with no model, no meteorological data, and no performance index required, by taking a statistical signal processing approach in the algorithms used in the package’s main data processing pipeline.

Scope

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  • Data retrieval
  • Data extraction
  • Data processing/munging
  • Data deposition
  • Data validation and testing
  • Data visualization¹
  • Workflow automation
  • Citation management and bibliometrics
  • Scientific software wrappers
  • Database interoperability

Domain Specific

• Geospatial
• Education

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  • Who is the target audience and what are scientific applications of this package?
    This package is for anyone dealing with photovoltaic data, especially data with no meteorological information (unlabeled). This includes photovoltaic professionals (in private solar industry or utility companies for example), researchers and students in the solar power domain, community solar owners, and anyone with a rooftop system. The scientific goal of the package is to facilitate analysis of photovoltaic data for any system, even those that are difficult to model, and the package uses signal decomposition to achieve that.

  • Are there other Python packages that accomplish the same thing? If so, how does yours differ?
    There are two other packages that are similar in that they offer data analysis tools for solar applications: PVAnalytics and RdTools. They are both model driven, and require the user to define their own analysis. PVAnalytics focuses on preprocessing and QA, while RdTools focuses on loss factor analysis. Solar Data Tools provides both data quality and loss factor analysis, runs automatically with little to no setup, and is model-free and does not require any weather or other information. Solar Data Tools is most suited for when users want a pre-defined pipeline to get information on complex systems/sites that can't be modeled easily and that no meteorological data. A recent tutorial that was part of a virtual tutorial series on open-source tools and open-access solar data held by DOE’s Solar Technology Office in March 2024 goes over the differences in these packages and when each tool is appropriate to use. You can find the recording here and the slide deck here (see slide 16 for a summary).

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    Solar Data Tools pre-submission inquiry #204 (@cmarmo)

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[cmarmo]

Editor in Chief checks

Hi @pluflou ! Thank you for submitting your package for pyOpenSci review.
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Editor comments

Solar Data Tools is in excellent condition! Congratulation for all your work! 🚀

My only comment is related to the test coverage, which could be improved.
We don't set a minimal threshold for test coverage in order to start the review process, so, if you don't mind, just keep my comment somewhere as a reminder for future developments, and I'm going to look right away for an editor.

[cmarmo]

I saw a new 1.6.2 version was released while waiting for my feedback: I took the liberty to update the version submitted so the reviewers would deal with the latest version available.

[pluflou]

I saw a new 1.6.2 version was released while waiting for my feedback: I took the liberty to update the version submitted so the reviewers would deal with the latest version available.

Thank you!!

[cmarmo]

Hi @pluflou , I am glad to announce that we have an editor for Solar Data Tools review.

@shirubana kindly accepted to take care of your submission. I am letting her introduce herself here and wishing a nice review process to all people involved.

[pluflou]

Thank you @shirubana for volunteering to review our package! We are excited to work with you on this. In the meantime, please let us know if you have any questions!

[shirubana]

Hi, starting on this and navigating the various resources to do this properly.

[shirubana]

Ok, I think I am acquainted now with the steps/my job after perusing the guide and slack. I have started to look for reviewers.

[bmeyers]

Thank you @shirubana! Looking forward to working with you on this.

[bmeyers]

Hi @shirubana! I just wanted to check in and see if there were any updates, and if there was anything you needed from us. Thank you!

[pluflou]

@cmarmo @shirubana is it possible to update to the latest version (1.6.4)? This version is now available on conda-forge (previous versions were on a private channel).

[cmarmo]

@pluflou , since the review has not started yet, I have updated the information about the submitted version in the description.

@shirubana, please let us know if you need any help to find reviewers.... unfortunately, onboarding reviewers can be tricky....

[pluflou]

Hi @cmarmo @shirubana, happy new year! Just wanted to check in on how things are going, and have a small update. We have the JOSS paper in a branch's (joss_paper) root dir under paper/ and I'm just wondering if we should merge that into main or if we should provide the link to the branch. Thank you!

[lwasser]

Hi Team 👋🏻 it would be great to move this review forward. I am happy to post on social to try to help find reviewers if someone can help me understand what we need here! ✨ I know it's a challenging time here in the US for science so it's super understandable that things might move more slowly because of that!

[cmarmo]

Hi @lwasser, I'm checking our reviewer list right now and will see if I can onboard some new reviewer.
I'm back to you all soon.

[cmarmo]

Dear all,
I have one positive answer from a reviewer.
They are very interested in the package, however they are asking for an extended timeline (~3 months) because of their current academic tasks.

I know this package has already waited a lot (and I am also looking for a second reviewer), so I would like to know if the maintainers are fine with this arrangement ... it is quite a challenge to find reviewers ....

Please @pluflou , @bmeyers , let me know what do you think.

Thanks a lot for your patience!

[bmeyers]

Hi @cmarmo, we certainly appreciate any and all volunteer effort that folks can put in here. The proposed timeline is far from ideal, but I'm not sure we're in much of a position to push back. In short, we'll take what we can get!

[cmarmo]

Thank you @bmeyers for your answer and your understanding!
We have our first reviewer then.
I am glad to say that @jinningwang has kindly accepted to review this package.

Before beginning your review, please fill out our pre-review survey. This helps us improve all aspects of our review and better understand our community. No personal data will be shared from this survey - it will only be used in an aggregated format by our Executive Director to improve our processes and programs.

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Please get in touch with any questions or concerns!

As we discussed offline, let's keep in mind a three month timeline for this review... hopefully, things will go smoothly and perhaps the review can come in sooner 🤞

[shirubana]

Hi, sorry, this fell out my radar, I did succeed in getting one extra reviewer. @cdeline , are you still available to help?

Can I act as a reviewer too as I have not been very good as an editor?

[cmarmo]

@shirubana, don't worry! We all struggle with our schedules.

I'm fine with you as a reviewer as long as we can keep an open communication about the timeline.
Would you have time to finalize the review together with our first reviewer (or sooner... :) )?
Thank you for your help!