PV plant operators grapple with a range of challenges, including subpar energy production, ineffective solar tracker algorithms, frequent insulation failures, and undetected performance losses.
Operational complexity arises from overwhelming data and alarms, while economic pressures come from declining electricity prices and uncertain battery storage solutions. Maintenance costs are escalating, remote plant management is difficult, and the optimal timing and methods for predictive maintenance remain unclear. How do they solve this?
How PVOP helps PV operators?
The European PVOP project proposes a series of solutions to address these problems, based on the digitalisation of photovoltaic plants, ensuring high-quality monitoring data and applying artificial intelligence and big data techniques for the automatic detection of faults, diagnosis of their causes and optimisation of maintenance resources.
Briefly, some of the solutions are as follows:
- Sensorisation toolkit to to ensure quality operational data that enables AI to be applied.
- Smart tracking control for large monofacial and bifacial single-axis tracking PV plants over terrain of arbitrary orientation and slope for the performance optimisation, especially during backtracking.
- Near 100% automatic AI-based system based on a family of algorithm for faults detection and diagnosis of causes from data recorded at the PV plant.
- Near 100% autonomous aerial inspection and fault detection system based on the integration of AI and high temporal and spatial resolution multispectral aerial imaging solutions.
- Near 100% automatic and predictive PV asset management software to maximise performance and optimisation of asset O&M management based on multi-level KPIs and integrating data from sensors, images and reports from O&M teams.
- AI-based smart control system of PV plants with batteries with weather and electricity market forecasts to maximise the energy trading.
But these solutions are nothing if they are not well-oriented towards the problems of managers and operators of PV plants. Nor are artificial intelligence toolsanything if they are not powered by human intelligence based on the experience of those who suffer the problems described on the ground.
We do not believe in data-centric digitalization but in one guided by the reality of the actors who manage large portfolios of photovoltaic plants.
PVOP’s Vision
Based on this conviction, we do not want to present ready-made solutions to companies in the sector, but rather we want to involve the potential recipients of our solutions from the beginning: from the identification of the relevant problems that need to be addressed, through the design of the solutions and up to their validation in their PV plants under real operating conditions.
In the PVOP project consortium there are already representative companies in the sector that are aware of these problems and that contribute this vision, but it is good that there are more of us, because the reality is varied in terms of technologies, climatic conditions and economic contexts.
PVOP is not just another project but rather a ship that we invite you to board to travel this journey together. It will not only be a direct and immediate benefit for the company that joins, but for the entire European PV sector.
Have I sparked your interest in this challenge and how to tackle it? If so, reach out to me at luis.narvarte@upm.es and join our Discord community! There, you can continue the discussion with me and other experts and stay informed about upcoming updates on the PVOP project. It’s the best place to be in the loop!