The Unipi Patron S117 controls photovoltaic power plants in several countries, with a total capacity of 393 MWp. The PLC optimizes their performance, saves maintenance costs, and controls them from a single control center via the PECOM system.
Photon Energy is an international company based in Amsterdam that provides services in renewable energy. These include the construction, operation, and maintenance of photovoltaic power plants, the sale of carbon-free electricity, or support services for energy grids. The company owns and operates solar parks in Europe and Australia and manages its customers' solar PV power plants.
Through its proprietary web-based monitoring platform, PECOM (Photon Energy Command), the customer monitors and controls nearly 176 PV plants in real-time with an installed capacity of over 393 MWp in seven countries. Thanks to its active dispatching system, it can quickly react to potential outages or negative electricity prices, helping its clients to minimize costly downtime or losses and optimize power generation.
Controlling and monitoring such large installations requires reliable control units with high computing power. The customer uses Unipi units in its solution.
Challenge
Photon Energy was looking for a comprehensive solution to manage several large solar power plants on two continents from a single control center.
The critical requirement was to find a PLC that met specific technical parameters, such as four RS485 serial interfaces and 8 GB of internal memory. It was also necessary to ensure compatibility with PECOM's communication and monitoring interface.
Such a solution requires broad connectivity and the ability to work with various communication and monitoring protocols commonly used in the solar industry. However, not all PLC manufacturers offer this compatibility; some even prefer custom protocols, limiting the customer's options.
Many PLCs on the market also lack the capacity to continuously process such a large amount of data so quickly.
The software openness of the products offered by Unipi is also unique in the market. It allows choosing from a wide selection of available software solutions, from the officially supported Mervis platform through third-party solutions to the customer's own software. This flexibility has enabled the customer to tailor the solution to their needs.
Solution
The Patron S117 controller meets the requirements; the client requested it in a custom version. Furthermore, he also used the Unipi Extension xS11 module. The Patron S117 was used as the basis, with four RS485 serial lines for communication with many external devices. In addition to the standard equipment, the programmable logic controller was supplemented with a customer's software tool HUB, which transforms and aggregates data and then sends it to the PECOM system.
In the PECOM control system, all readings are displayed clearly, and a detailed analysis of the history of the PV plant can be created.
The resulting product is branded with the Photon Energy company logo in the customer's chosen color. Thanks to the Patron S117 controller enriched with HUB and other developed drivers, Photon Energy currently reads data from 52 types and kinds of solar inverters from 24 manufacturers.
Advantages of the solution
- Optimized solar power plant performance
- Early identification and prevention of problems
- Performance monitoring with active dispatch 365 days a year
- Response time of only 30 minutes in case of a service contract
- Alerts via informative tickets
- Reduction in the number of hardware elements in the switchboard
- Energy saving and loss minimization
- Technical support and helpline
- Inventory management within the PV service
- Software updates and inovations
- Calculation of typical key performance indicators
- Long-term archive of all data
Photon Energy monitors and controls 170 power plants in 7 countries from its headquarters in Karlin, Prague.
The controller is connected to
- Solar panels
- Inverters
- Strinboxes and individual current inputs
- Electricity meters
- Light sensors, wind sensors, pyranometers
- Routers
- Dataloggers
- Analyzers
- Transformers
- Solar trackers
- Batteries
- Distribution system signals, active and reactive power control
The Unipi Patron PLC allows measuring and evaluating hundreds of values from a given technology and performs its further calculations.
Through the web interface, service technicians can see PV plant data recorded by Unipi controllers at a granularity of seconds and can intervene immediately in case of problems.
Next steps
Photon Energy is developing a new monitoring system and planning to expand the current hardware.
"Due to the excellent experience with Unipi's solution so far, we are counting on its use in the new version of our system as well."- Jan Cerny; Director of PV Control Division, Photon Energy
Are you interested in the solution described above? Please get in touch with us at info@unipi.technology or call us at +420 601 308 791.
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