Page 8 - North American Clean Energy March April 2018 Issue

top story
8
MARCH•APRIL2018 /// www.nacleanenergy.com
UNTIL NOW, SOLAR POWER HAS BEEN HINDERED BY
one simple truth: the sun doesn’t always shine.
If you had an o -grid system such as a street light, and there was
bad weather for more than a few days, the battery would drain, and the light would eventually go out. at’s it! ere was no way to predict how long the battery might last, or change the settings to preserve power. It’s like driving a car with no warning light on the dashboard to indicate when you’re low on gas.
Today, solar and wind energy are powering critical infrastructure, from streetlights to telecom systems to security cameras and more. is means it is no longer viable for these devices to be unmonitored and unmanaged, or to fail after a few days with no sun or wind.
Connecting solar to the cloud
Smart o -grid technology is the next stage in the solar
power revolution. A smart o -grid controller and a built-in communications network embedded in the solar-powered device, streams critical data in real-time to a cloud-based management system. By connecting these devices to the cloud, infrastructure owners can use a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) app to remotely monitor, manage, and control the smart o -grid systems in real- time, 24/7, via a smartphone or laptop. is includes automated estimation of energy generation based on current load and local weather forecasts, around-the-clock monitoring, automated alerts and alarms, the ability to remotely change load pro les
to extend battery life, and in-depth analysis of solar power generation and consumption performance over time.
In terms of how it works in practice, let’s take our example of bad weather. If there’s an extended period of bad weather predicted, the amount of sunlight hitting a solar panel will likely be insu cient
to keep the batteries charged, and power the lights over that period. With smart o -grid, the person responsible for the lights will receive an alert via text or email from the cloud management system, so they can proactively turn down the luminosity of the lights to preserve battery power and prevent an outage.
e ability to monitor, manage, and control smart o -grid systems makes o -grid devices signi cantly more reliable. In one case, a smart o -grid system kept a solar-powered street light
on for 10 continuous days without sunlight – whereas, typically,
it would have failed in only two or three days. In cases where there is an outage, the infrastructure owner can access the data history to make it easy to troubleshoot the issue; they can then either x it remotely, or send an engineer with the right replacement part.
Smart o -grid reduces the cost of installing and maintaining o -grid systems by up to 80 percent, often making it considerably more price- competitive than an on-grid system. In one example, a Canadian city wanted to install street lights in a busy district; connection to the grid would have cost $35,000 per street light -- more than three times the cost of installing smart o -grid power.
Where smart o -grid will flourish first
In the same way that India leapfrogged the U.S. in the adoption of smartphones, an emerging market, such as sub-Saharan Africa, may become the leader in using solar power for most of its critical infrastructure.
is is because low-cost, reliable solar power has the greatest growth potential in countries where existing electric grid infrastructure is underdeveloped. Sub-Saharan Africa certainly ful ls this criteria: 600 million people lack access to electricity. For those who do have access to electricity, power cuts are frequent; they often have to rely on diesel fuel generators as a back-up when the power grid fails – a noisy, dirty, and expensive solution.
However, according to a report by the University of Michigan, “Although sustainable energy systems are being installed in the region, there is a severe lack of technical expertise regarding the maintenance and repair of energy systems, resulting in ine ciencies and shortened system lifecycles. Without ensuring the productivity of new sustainable energy systems, the region will likely continue to rely on diesel fuel generators.”
Smart O -Grid
Will Revolutionize
Solar Power
by Miriam Tuerk