ENR-Monitor
Surveillance and monitoring of photovoltaic installations
To maximize the return on investment of your photovoltaic installation
The decision to invest in a photovoltaic system is usually motivated by the return on investment it provides. This is closely related to the amount of energy that will be produced during the operating period and the duration of the operation.
The operator must therefore ensure that he gets the maximum energy out of his installation and optimizes its life span.
However, several phenomena can affect the yield of a photovoltaic installation:
- Fouling of the photovoltaic panels by dust, pollution or other elements (bird droppings, etc.)
- Occurrence of shading not initially anticipated (growth of plants, trees, etc.)
- The degradation of several photovoltaic cells or modules due to an incident or premature aging
- The melting of a string protection fuse. This case is difficult to detect when several strings are mounted in parallel,
- Etc.
The only way to optimize the operation of the photovoltaic system is to monitor it continuously. Such monitoring shall include:
- Permanent monitoring of the actual yield in relation to the theoretical yield
- Monitoring of alarms generated by the main equipment (inverters, chargers, etc.)
- Monitoring the status of protection and control devices (circuit breakers, fuses, switches)
Our Solution
Elexpert has developed the ENR-MONITOR solution which allows to :
- Measure the voltage, current, power and energy produced by each string of PV modules
- Measure voltage, current, power and energy stored and released by the batteries
- Measure the main electrical parameters of each inverter and monitor its operating status
- Measuring the main electrical parameters of the other parts of the installation: consumption by use, group of uses, etc., consumption from the public grid, consumption from the generator, quantity of energy injected into the grid, quality of electrical energy at the point of connection to the grid (PCC), …
- Monitor the condition of the photovoltaic modules and their control and protection equipment (fuses, switches, circuit breakers, surge protectors)
- Limit injection into the public grid to a predefined percentage or eliminate it altogether,
- Monitor environmental parameters: solar irradiation, ambient temperature and humidity, panel temperature, wind speed, and other parameters upon request.
- Etc.
Applications
Our solutions are tailor-made, taking into account the exact architecture of your installation and your specific needs.
Benefits
The benefits are many:
- Customized architecture: whatever the configuration of your installation: single-site or multi-site, single-inverter or multi-inverter, on-grid or off-grid, self-consumption or self-production, solar pumping installation, hybrid PV / wind / solar heating installation, with or without backup generator, etc.
- Customized supervision screens
- Customized production and consumption reports
- Local and actual weather data
- Real time monitoring of the performance ratio of the installation
- Measurement of the efficiency of each individual component: PV modules, inverters, etc.
- Integration of network analyzers for power quality control
- Integration of infrared thermography cameras for monitoring the photovoltaic field
- Integration of DC and AC dataloggers for monitoring outgoing feeders (use), storage batteries, … and measuring the energy consumed per load or group of loads
- Creation of alarms on any type of event: out-of-tolerance electrical parameters, drop in efficiency, erratic operation, loss of communication, etc.
- Real-time alarms, by e-mail, SMS or local, visual or sound
- Proprietary database, installed locally, on your premises. No need for a PC for data storage
- Access to the application via the local Intranet or via the Web if needed (with passwords and secure VPN)
- Can be integrated into an existing energy management system or Scada system