How Edge Computing Transforms Solar Energy Equipment Business Model

Originally, the first solar trackers were autonomous, not digitally connected, and could not be compared to today's IoT ("Internet of Things") devices. In short, there was no possibility of remote access to them, which limited the possibility of being able to offer a value-added after-sales service, being satisfied with being able to repair the assets directly on site or in the factory.

The Challenge of Servitization for Solar Energy Equipment Suppliers

The main challenge for solar energy equipment suppliers is to move from being manufacturers of equipment with a very long useful life (approximately 20 to 25 years), and therefore with very low levels of device renewal, to accompanying customers throughout the life cycle of these products, offering them associated services with greater added value.

Likewise, the geographical dispersion of solar plants and the growing number of devices make it necessary for equipment manufacturers to have a solution that allows them to obtain data on their operation in each of the photovoltaic plants in which they are installed, and to extract value for customer support, guaranteeing greater plant availability, as well as for predictive action and improvement of the product itself once it has been installed.

Remote locations, the absence of IT personnel in the field, delays between device provisioning and deployment, Solar Tracker downtime and limited scalability due to the lost time required for massive manual device upgrades are other major challenges facing the industry.

Barbara, the Cybersecure Industrial Edge Platform as a solution to industry challenges

Now thanks to the Edge Industrial Barbara platform, a combination of software, systems and services, it is possible to maintain and control the assets and operating equipment on the Edge, enabling the generation of value from the real-time data capture of the devices installed in the photovoltaic plants.

The Edge Barbara Platform is composed of different modules ranging from the monitoring of photovoltaic plants and solar tracking equipment (position, temperature, location, battery status, alarms, weather, last update, etc.), to the deployment, management and centralized configuration in the application nodes and in a single click, as well as the management of inventories, shipments and equipment repairs.

With Barbara it is possible in a matter of minutes to register the edge nodes, provision their boot configuration, change their configuration, reboot, shutdown or terminate them completely remotely. nodes edgeThe nodes, provision their boot configuration, change their configuration, reboot them, shut them down or terminate them completely remotely. In addition, it is also possible to continuously update the firmware of the nodes. through OTA, keeping you free of security vulnerabilities..

All fleet management and maintenance actions can be performed remotely, individually or massively in thousands of nodes at a time, where they also have the ability to configure customized alerts and notifications to anticipate the occurrence of the problem by receiving warnings when any parameter exceeds a safety threshold, which enables the execution of preventive actions to ensure the continuity of service before it degrades. The Barbara platform can send real-time alerts via: SMS, Email, Telegram, MS Teams, SIEM or API REST.

Barbara is capable of processing Gigabytes of data daily, monitoring hundreds of PV plants and solar tracking controls in real time.

The information is collected from each facility, securely transferred and received centrally on the platform, where it is processed, offering scalability, data availability, security and performance for analysis. This makes it possible to provide personalized 24-hour support and monitoring to all plants regardless of their geographical location on a single platform.

In addition, the Barbara platform platform also allows remote access to the devices, enabling diagnostics and parameter adjustments after commissioning, as well as preventive and reactive maintenance. In this way, both the delivery and after-sales departments, as well as the quality and engineering departments, benefit from the platform to improve the product on a daily basis.

With Barbara's deployment, solar energy equipment suppliers are able to monitor 100% of the solar trackers installed in the different areas where they operate, supervise the plants and provide service to their customers around the world. The company's technicians can remotely check, diagnose and solve most of the problems that may appear in an installation during its operation, ensuring greater availability, and therefore greater energy production without incidents.

Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics for Asset Management

In the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), where everything is connected by sensors and systems, the next step is to incorporate advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) into asset management. Where data collected from assets is analyzed using AI techniques, generating new insights that help maintenance teams make better decisions,

Barbara's Edge platform enables the deployment of all these applications to improve efficiency, reliability and asset safety in real time.

The main benefits of managing your assets through the Edge are:

1. Scalability: by distributing the storage and processing of data in many locations, the investment in infrastructure is much lower.
2. Increased security and data sovereignty: by controlling the data from its location of origin and therefore deciding what and when to send to the cloud, the risks of theft or improper access to information are reduced.
3. Greater efficiency: data analysis frequencies from the edge allow working with thousands of data almost instantaneously, and analysis and response times are in the order of milliseconds. This allows for near-real-time use cases, unthinkable in cloud environments more oriented towards offline analysis of batches of information.

Reducing operating costs and improving data security by implementing real-time monitoring and diagnostics is now a reality for manufacturers and a must for those who do not want to be left behind and want to maximize their efficiency.

The ability to adapt to change by improving operations can mean the difference between survival and extinction.

AI tools provide visibility and actionable information for today's dispersed assets. As the importance, risk, quantity or cost of corporate assets (critical or capital) increases, the importance of maintaining control and visibility of these assets becomes clear. And thanks to IoT, the Edge and Artificial Intelligence, there are more opportunities than ever to collect, consolidate and analyse asset information to help fine-tune asset performance.

If you were interested in this article, please contact us to learn more about Barbara IoT Technology and request a personalised demo.

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