2014 PV Reliability, Operations & Maintenance Workshop: O&M with SCADA, AlsoEnergy

Overview

5/15/2014

Presented by: Kevin Suhr Sales and Service Engineer AlsoEnergy Inc.

O&M with SCADA

• 2 years field installation

• 3 years monitoring installation and technical support

• #1 Third Party Commercial Solar Monitoring provider in North

America

• 100’s of calls per week

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Background

• Given on Utility and Industrial sites (50kW +)

• Data Tracking from day of Commissioning

• Design Model Analysis (PVsyst)

• Performance Benchmark

• Alerting

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Value of Monitoring

• Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition

• Not necessarily real-time or for grid stability

• Additional functionality to troubleshoot or repair remotely

• Provides cost savings

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SCADA

• Commissioning

• Insuring proper installation

• Full documentation of as-built site

• Setting the performance benchmark

• Scheduled Maintenance

• String Testing

• Inverter Maintenance

• Tracker Maintenance

• Cleaning

• Unplanned Outage or Degradation

• Loss of revenue

• Create plan of action

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Operations and Maintenance

• Determine validity of alert

• Co-located Sites

• Known Failure Conditions

• Site Documentation

• Cost of Alert Condition

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Plan of Action

• Reduce Truck Rolls

• One Stop Repairs

• Adjust Maintenance Routines

• Weigh future hardware decisions

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End Goal

• Efficiency through software

• Operations package available for alert-driven work order

generation

• Financial tracking of repairs and downtime

• Automated reporting

• Custom solutions

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AlsoEnergy Approach

• Remote breaker control

• Analyze and reset

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Custom Solutions

• Cameras

• Heated Pyranometers

• Snow Sensors

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Custom Solutions

• Enable / Disable

• Inverter fault resets

• Dependent on Inverter Manufactures

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Custom Solutions

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Electrical Engineer

IT/Computer Technician

Controls Engineer

Skill vs Location

Onsite Remote

Electrician

Technician

O&M Manager

PV Design Engineer

Performance Analyst

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O&M Module

Tally event histories

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O&M Module

Track loss of revenue, due to downtime or maintenance

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• Cross team access

• Tech, O&M Manager, Performance Analyst

• Consolidation of site tracking • See Monitoring along side Work Tickets • All open issues

• Portfolio Wide Comparison • Group issues to problem hardware and site underperformance

• Hardware Degradation

Adoption of O&M Tracking

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Challenges and Future Goals

• Smart Equipment

• Inverters with accurate, human readable, O&M Faults

• Combiners / Recombiners with internal analysis

• DC Power Meters to separate PV performance from Inverter performance

• AC subsystem monitoring

• Breaker, Fuse, catastrophic failure

• Balance between Sensor Accuracy and Ease of Installation, Calibration

• Using scientific instruments in the field is not cost effective or a long term

solution.

5/15/2014

Thank You

Kevin Suhr| Sales and Service Engineer Also Energy, Inc. 3360 Mitchell Lane, Suite A, Boulder CO 80301 [email protected] http://www.AlsoEnergy.com http://www.DECKMonitoring.com Home of 2 Leading Software Products: PowerTrack and DECK Monitoring