provide generalized pv support or getting started primer

[mikofski]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I have been getting emails from people who want to use pvlib but are just getting started in pv. Is anyone else getting these?

Describe the solution you'd like
Maybe we can devote a short paragraph that recommends links like pvpmc.org and pveducation, as well as a few books like Stuart Wenham's Applied Photovoltaics that are useful for beginners.

Describe alternatives you've considered
This could also be in the wiki, or we could add a sentence that says, please feel free to ask any pv questions on the google forum or SO.

Additional context
in the meantime I have been referring them to the google group, pvpmc, and pveducation.

this could be a good project for the GSoC, or for the new examples gallery. I can see this primer being related to the existing jupyter notebook tutorials and the new gallery of examples somehow.

[cwhanse]

I have been getting emails from people who want to use pvlib but are just getting started in pv. Is anyone else getting these?

Frequently. The question is usually posed as "how do I use pvlib" but the question really should be "how do I model PV"

Describe the solution you'd like

I think it would help a lot to have an end-to-end modeling example in the gallery. The pvlib Intro tutorial is somewhat terse for a beginner in PV (it's OK if they already know PV and are looking for an outline of pvlib). Maybe the PVLib for MATLAB example provides an outline; along with a paragraph at each step describing what each modeling step accomplishes.