Monitoring and control

India witnessed above-average precipitation and prolonged cloud cover through July and August, limiting the potential of PV generation across many states. Several regions, including Punjab, Haryana, and the Himalayan foothills, were hit hardest by flooding and thunderstorms. The increase in atmospheric moisture and aerosol scattering led to reduced Global Horizontal Irradiation (GHI) and reduced energy output.

Modern wind turbines and solar plants generate large volumes of operational data. By leveraging analytics, inefficiencies can be identified, performance assessed in real-time, and emerging issues addressed before they escalate. A dynamic operations and maintenance (O&M) support system builds on this intelligence to provide a strong grip on performance levels while minimising downtime.

ENGIE has launched a program to collaborate with enterprise-ready startups in addressing operational and technological challenges across India’s renewable energy sector.

Toshiba JSW Power Systems has secured a contract with NTPC Ltd—India’s state-owned power generation company—to provide a centralized monitoring system for 165 thermal and renewable energy power plants.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that solar irradiance fell by up to 30% in India’s northern regions during the southwest monsoon season, while central areas of the country made solar gains.

Honeywell has acquired the Li-ion Tamer business from Nexceris, a leader in off-gas detection technology for lithium-ion batteries. Li-ion Tamer’s early warning technology detects battery off-gassing, which typically precedes thermal runaway, providing facilities with vital time to intervene before a battery fire starts.

The partnership focuses on developing scalable battery management systems, bi-directional onboard chargers and other EV systems for two-wheelers, three-wheelers, passenger vehicles, and commercial vehicles in the Indian market.

Scientists in Germany have collected dust from Qatar, Morocco and Thailand to analyze the impact on the performance of uncoated solar glass and uncoated PV mini-modules. Their analysis has shown that dust coverage could range from 4% to 60%.

In the solar energy sector, P50, P90, and P99 represent the probability that a project will generate at least a certain amount of electricity in a given year. This article explains what these probabilities mean, why they are important, how they are calculated, and how to use them.

The solar energy industry is capitalising on the integration of automation and AI. These technologies play an integral role in transforming solar operations from reactive and manual processes into intelligent, predictive and highly efficient systems.