SolarPulse solves the problem of managing distributed solar sites
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This case study presents how solarpulsetm, a centralized solar monitoring solution, assists a large organization managing multiple rooftop solar installations in India by providing real-time monitoring and management from a single platform. The solution significantly reduces operational costs, increases efficiency, and enhances the performance of the solar sites, saving 7,300 man-hours annually with plans to expand to 50 sites for a total capacity of 4 MW. It enables effective management through role-based access and performance benchmarking while eliminating the need for extensive onsite monitoring.
SolarPulse solves the problem of managing distributed solar sites
- 1. Any Device. Any Network. Any Protocol. Case Study - SolarPulseTM solves the problem of managing distributed solar sites We have considered a real example of a large organization with multiple offices spread across the country. The company has recently invested in rooftop solar installations across its offices in India. It currently has 10 sites with rooftop solar A large number of companies today are investing in solar photovoltaics to meet their annual energy requirements by installing rooftop solar panels at their office locations. This helps them to reduce their energy bills besides providing a source of clean and sustainable energy. The number of such rooftop solar installations have increased manifold in recent years. This makes monitoring and management of these assets a challenging and costly affair for the company. One such company, with distributed solar assets, contracted MachinePulseTM to provide a solution capable of monitoring all its solar sites on a single platform. In this case study, we have provided a qualitative analysis of the benefits of using SolarPulseTM for monitoring of distributed solar sites. We have assessed the impact and advantage of SolarPulseTM in terms of costs, efficiency and ease of access. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION installations each with an average capacity of 80 kW. The company plans to expand the number of solar installations to 50 in the coming years. The total capacity of all the locations, after full expansion, will therefore stand at 4 MW. For any queries contact us at: sales@machinepulse.com | 022-61741608/09 Page no.: 1/4
- 2. All the 10 solar sites of the company are now monitored using a single solution (SolarPulseTM ) from a single location, thus increasing the efficiency of plant supervision. • SolarPulseTM displays the global view of all the sites of the company along with the site’s name and KPIs such as PR and power generation units. • • It ensures uniform reporting across sites and provides MIS for senior management. • • All aspects of the solar installations across the company's solar portfolio are monitored in real time using SolarPulseTM . Key metrics such as performance and yield can be obtained easily through any web browser or mobile device from anywhere in the world, without need for any additional software. • It supports all standard inverters, energy meters and environmental sensors. It also has the capability to support all established protocols of data collection and reporting. The quality and effectiveness of the monitoring solution greatly enhances the productivity of solar PV plants. The company, having no previous experience in solar power, found it difficult to efficiently manage its vast portfolio of sites. The organization was using an onsite local SCADA for monitoring of their rooftop assets. This process was tedious and time consuming which had to be carried out on a daily basis. Thus, the costs involved in monitoring and servicing the solar installations across its various locations were very high. Also, the different solar installations had equipment from different OEM's which meant that these devices followed different data collection and reporting protocols. As a result, the company had to invest in customized software for each site. PROBLEM STATEMENT MachinePulseTM provided the company with its flagship remote PV monitoring solution - SolarPulseTM . It is an integrated, OEM independent solution for the centralized management of geographically distributed solar plants. SOLUTION For any queries contact us at: sales@machinepulse.com | 022-61741608/09 Page no.: 2/4
- 3. ADVANTAGES AND BENEFITS • SolarPulseTM provides the ability to demarcate areas of responsibility and access. Individual login and access permissions can be set across the portfolio of solar installations. • Access rights can be assigned across the different solar sites and their alarms. • The geographical display of plant locations and status constantly gives plant owners and operators a concise picture of the status of all plants assigned to their user account. • This helps to assign roles and responsibilities which ensures effective management of the distributed solar sites. • The cost of deploying SolarPulseTM for monitoring of the complete solar portfolio is more economical than having individual monitoring software at each site. • No need to set up an operational team at each site for maintenance of solar installations.• Without SolarPulseTM , physical checking of the panels and inverters would be required at each site. The time involved in this process is approximately 2 hours per day per site. Thus, for the 10 solar sites, it amounts to savings of • With SolarPulseTM , technicians are deployed on the site only when a fault or failure is detected. SolarPulseTM has thus helped to drastically reduce the cost of monitoring and maintenance of the solar sites. • SolarPulseTM gives the portfolio owner the capability to compare various parameters across the sites such as performance ratio, irradiance, power generation etc. This helps to easily identify underperforming sites. • The company can also benchmark the sites against the best performing site and accordingly make decisions regarding servicing and maintenance. • It can also compare technological equipment used across locations or benchmark the different EPC companies contracted to build these sites. This will help the company to identify the best performing EPC contractors and equipments for its future projects. Role based access Performance Benchmarking across portfolio Reduced Costs 7,300 man hours per year. For the full portfolio of 50 sites, after expansion is completed, this number will stand at 36,650 man hours. For any queries contact us at: sales@machinepulse.com | 022-61741608/09 Page no.: 3/4
- 4. For any queries contact us at: sales@machinepulse.com | 022-61741608/09 Page no.: 4/4 SolarPulseTM has played a significant role in unifying the command centre and providing a centralized solar monitoring solution for the company. The ability of the client to manage a large number of distributed solar installations from a single monitoring platform has increased the overall performance of its solar sites. It has also helped to reduce operational costs and increase power generation. CONCLUSION Alarms and Notifications • The alarms and notifications help operators to always remain alert to any faults and failures. • These can be customized to suit the client's needs, which can also be delivered via either SMS or Email to respective O&M team based at different locations. • It thereby allows operators to immediately deploy personnel to the relevant site and take corrective action. Number of Sites 50 36,500 Man-hours saved per year 80 kW Average capacity per site Total capacity 4 MW Monitoring Solution ( SolarPulseTM ) 1