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Ask most people about the main difference between renewable and conventional energy sources and you're sure to hear about their respective environmental impacts.
However, for those who actually work in the electric power industry, one of the most significant practical differences is that conventional power plants, whether coal, gas or nuclear, operate in enclosed spaces.
Renewables, on the other hand, tend to be distributed and typically dispersed in hard-to-reach regions such as windy hills, scorching deserts, offshore wind farms, distant plains and other remote locations.
Just like their conventional counterparts, wind turbines and solar collectors require constant monitoring, frequent adjustment and ongoing maintenance. Because they are built around newer, more sensitive technologies, their maintenance needs tend to be at least as great as those of a traditional plant.
However, identifying and correcting problems and maintaining machines on site are much faster tasks for those working in facilities within the walls of a traditional plant. This happens for two reasons.
Firstly, if solar photovoltaic installations want to have the same performance and savings as traditional large-scale energy generation, they need to use mechanisms that allow constant surveillance and immediate control over an expansive collector system.
And second, because the solar energy industry, like so many others, is on the path to digital transformation. In other words, capturing data that allows energy companies to realize the benefits of digital operations is a fundamental requirement for such a transition.
However, the fact is that the current generation of technologies falls short. For example, technologies built around mesh systems have been used to monitor and control some photovoltaic systems.
Its units are often used to manage consumer smart home devices as well as industrial equipment, such as traffic management systems that require short-range, low-bandwidth wireless connections.
The devices rely on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networks for communication, but they are ineffective over long distances. Other types of systems, such as those based on cell phones or radio frequency, have other deficiencies such as the lack of automatic features or poor real-time performance. What to do then?
The most attractive and intelligent alternative is the use of sensors and IoT (Internet of Things). Unmanned, internet-connected sensors and digital microcontrollers – IoT devices that eliminate the dangers and challenges associated with traditional cable installations – make measuring and monitoring data much easier and cheaper.
This decentralized and highly flexible architecture provides a much faster and more efficient way to match deployments across large solar installations. The same resource can equally be used to monitor, analyze, transmit and optimize the performance of residential solar installations.
In fact, with the emergence of residential solar and other renewable technologies, the North American power grid, for example, has become more distributed than ever before. And home installations are expected to triple by 2025, according to an analysis by Credit Suisse.
But why is IoT so critical for renewable energy?
Regardless of the size of a plant, performance data as well as maintenance-related information – such as vibration, temperature and wear – can be collected by devices at the facility and transmitted to off-site gateways, where service technicians can use it to adjust settings and optimize maintenance remotely.
Such information is collected and transmitted in a manner compatible with high-performance analytics and other applications, including inspection scheduling, fault detection, and generation monitoring.
As a result, operator decisions that affect power grid integration, such as voltage control, load switching and network configuration, can be shared between individuals in different locations – regardless of their physical locations. Some of these decisions can even be automated.
In 2016, the conceptual sketch of an IoT-based monitoring system for solar generation was presented at the II International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, Energy & Communication. The authors' data-rich concept would be to monitor the performance of solar plants holistically using IoT technology.
The authors pointed out that integrating large-scale solar power installations into regional power grids would require high-level data analysis for decision-making, as well as historical analysis of their performance – a key role for IoT.
Power generation will not be its only application
The Internet of Things is also suitable for energy conservation projects. An amazing example of energy conservation with IoT combined with Artificial Intelligence and other advanced technologies is New York's Empire State Building.
The building, at the height of its nearly 90-year existence, has become much smarter through a recent retrofit project costing US$550 million. Today, IoT devices track CO₂ and light levels, movements, load occupancy, ambient temperature, energy consumption and many other parameters to optimize building energy-related decisions.
One of the corporate tenants of the iconic building, which occupies the entire 32nd floor, recorded a 57% reduction in electricity costs. And, in addition to the numerous environmental benefits, the company's energy savings are expected to reach around US$ 680 thousand over the course of its 15-year contract. Multiply that by the 102 floors of the Empire State Building – and the energy savings become even more impressive.
What does IoT mean for the solar industry?
Reflecting on IoT's contribution to digital transformation in solar installations, a Sierra Wireless blogger recently put it this way: “IoT can solve common challenges associated with complex power grids, making it much easier to manage panels and outputs. energy".
That said, the fact is that the use of IoT systems by power plants to control widely distributed panel installations will not only help in meeting customer demand. The change will be able to improve overall efficiency while facilitating the implementation of a much-welcomed digital transformation across all processes and operations.
