In a recent webinar Solar Symbiosis: Inverters and Monitoring, Ilen Zazueta-Hall, director of residential product management at Enphase Energy, presented on why inverter manufacturers offer monitoring. Here’s a recap of her presentation. You can watch the full webinar here.
Like the smart phone, solar inverters are getting smarter
Phones used to do one thing really well—call people. But now smart phones have apps for GPS, finding a good restaurant and just about everything in between. Ilen Zazueta-Hall made the same comparison with inverters, as she explained how they used to only convert DC to AC. “But that’s not the world of today, and more importantly, it’s not the world of tomorrow,” she explained.
Overall solar penetration has grown worldwide, and requirements on how solar projects interact with the grid are ever increasing. “That means that smart, grid-connected inverters now have to provide a platform for that control and other key business functions,” Zazueta-Hall said. “These can include making commissioning easier, generating leads by giving customers a really fabulous experience and connection to their PV system, or making sure that operations and maintenance is easy and diagnostics, updates and fixes are possible.” It’s important for inverter manufacturers to offer monitoring as the “app” to achieve this control. “Driving to a site and looking at equipment is a very expensive way to diagnose a problem,” Zazueta-Hall added. “A robust monitoring system can notify a team of a problem and allow them to diagnose it remotely. Then, when they do need to roll out a truck, they can more efficiently decide when and how to do it.”
Monitoring basics
Zazueta-Hall explained there are three basic aspects to monitoring a system.
1. Measure
2. Communicate
3. Manage
First, there has to be measurement. That measurement can be as granular as looking at data like AC and DC voltage, current and temperature per PV module. Second, you need to communicate the data, typically using some sort of communication hardware. Third, you must manage the data. This is usually where cloud-based monitoring comes into play because you’re looking at tens, hundreds or even thousands of systems that need to be monitored, maintained and understood. These basics enable overall fleet monitoring.
Connecting clouds
Another powerful benefit of having data in the cloud, Zazueta-Hall explained, is that if you do it right you can connect different clouds of data. “This means that data collected up into one management system can be used in other applications,” she said, and gave an example of how Locus Energy can integrate with Enphase Energy’s monitoring system, known as Enlighten. “They’re able to take the same measurements that were communicated to us and reuse them,” she explained. This is done by an API, which is just a way to connect two systems. Zazueta-Hall said APIs are key to moving data from one place to another so more can be done with it, such as connecting to customer relationship management (CRM) systems for billing, customer portals and more.