Reliable, clean electricity generated by utility-scale solar is one of the fastest routes to reducing our carbon emissions and securing our clean energy future. In fact, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported renewable energy resources were the fastest-growing source of electricity generation in the U.S. for the last two years.

There are more than 37,000 megawatts (MW) of utility-scale solar projects currently operating — and another 112,000 MW under development. When paired with energy storage, utility-scale solar provides backup power to meet the needs for energy ramps. As utility-scale solar gains market acceptance, wide-scale adoption of storage has paved the way for increased solar deployments.

While managing and integrating solar panels across vast solar farm infrastructure is essential, it requires a power grid that can adapt and efficiently maintain load balance. For solar operations to scale effectively while serving larger numbers of consumer end-users, there’s a need for scalable operations and management solutions that utility managers can depend on for business insight and intelligence.

IoT platforms keep energy pulse alive

In our connected, 24x7 world, energy production has become front and center for enabling all of our activities. Our digitized world can no longer rely on manual operations and management of energy/utility-scale infrastructure with engineers walking the facilities and plants. Automated, real-time operations systems are now the norm and allow operators and engineers to tap into cloud-based management systems to expedite the detection and mediation of risks before they turn into major disasters.

With solar plant expansion, both in size and complexity, turnkey monitoring portals for utility-scale solar installations are essential. Across these solar farms, each solar panel generates DC energy that is fed into a combiner (combining output from several solar strings), then sends the power into an inverter, converting it into AC. Equipment failure at any stage can hinder electrification if operators don’t receive alerts on potential problems.

IoT-enabled platforms have become the most cost-effective solutions to aggregate, organize and harness insightful intelligence from the grid edge. With IoT sensors attached to each solar panel, cloud-based IoT platforms provide grid managers with real-time, actionable analytics and end-to-end management systems. From asset management, production insights, customized reporting and alerting, coupled with digital operations and maintenance services, IoT platforms collect, analyze and share sensor data, obtained from every single connected solar panel and piece of equipment. This “solar energy digital supply chain” connected by the IoT network, leverages wired/wireless sensors to meet the specific needs of the solar sites.

This means operators have a digital twin of their entire portfolio of assets providing real-time state awareness as well as full control over the management and security of their geographically distributed infrastructure — whether monitoring one site, or hundreds of thousands of sites across a region. Real-time and historical analytics enabled by an IoT platform, allow unparalleled monitoring and management of solar installations on scale. Operators can easily create a multi-display operations center dashboard to gain remote access to:

• Manage equipment - drilling down into all equipment capabilities and sensors — including inverters, weather instruments, conditioners, easily perform on-demand or scheduled reboots and software updates and more.
• Meteorological measurements — monitor solar irradiation, back of module temp, wind speed, rain and ambient temperature.
• Production monitoring — with simple, historical representation of actual solar generation vs expected, allows for analysis of key performance indicators.
• Real-time faults and alerts — data is scanned in real time for any values exceeding normal operating thresholds triggering an automated alert.
• Measurement of individual devices — including substations, storage, grid metering, transformers and more.
• Forecast of energy productions — integrating weather forecast data can easily make adjustments to increase generation as needed.

The aggregated data can be encrypted and securely transmitted or shared with utility companies, via cell connection to avoid hindrances in the event of inclement weather. Utility companies, updated on the conditions of their PV sites, are notified via alerts on solar site problems — from panel temperatures, to wind effects, to ambient temperatures due to weather conditions affecting the panels and more.

IoT utility-scale solar farms are the future

Considering the IoT platform as a single source of truth, utility-scale solar infrastructure operators gain full insight into their solar panel-derived generation and the load connected to smart buildings and homes. Armed with this holistic view into the vast amounts of data generated from each solar panel, across vast solar farms, operators have, at their fingertips, valuable insight into the working of their solar infrastructure that’s never been possible before.

As automated alerts are flagged and dispatched to specified stakeholders and crew, data is harnessed for actionable insights for remote troubleshooting. Managers have full control of their geographically distributed smart metering infrastructure from a central command station. They can remotely manage and operate every aspect of their business — eliminating costly and time-consuming walk-throughs, truck rolls and on-site staff presence.

The remote monitoring and analytics capabilities of the IoT platforms are invaluable for the electrification of our smart cities, buildings and homes. The remote management of solar assets and networked systems from an operations center allows engineers to troubleshoot and remotely diagnose and resolve problems before dispatching field technicians to the site.

In our digitized world, IoT and IoT-enabled technology advances are allowing energy leaders to better manage smart grids by relying on scalable technologies that provide automated actionable intelligence in real-time for our always-on needs. With our heavy reliance on distributed energy sources and renewable energy supplements, the utility-scale solar industry has fully embraced IoT technologies for better control of our continued struggle against climate change and as we strive to lower our carbon footprint.