Remote Work O&M Technician Support Monitoring of Utility-Scale Solar Farms

纽维尔电网数据公司正在开发新的复杂硬件和大数据系统，使英国太阳能发电场运营和维护(O&M)行业的个人工人能够远程和实时地监控他们太阳能发电场的运营状况。这不仅使个别工人能够在家中远程履行大量职责，还为他们提供了太阳能发电场设备的早期预警状况监测，这是该部门现有监测和通信设备目前无法提供的。纽维尔系统的状态监测预警元素对整个社会都是有益的，因为它将使太阳能发电场运营商将计划外设备故障导致的停机时间降至最低，从而确保英国安装的太阳能资产中有更大比例可用于社区的电力消费需求。虽然纽维尔创新电网监测系统的硬件方面已经在私人资金的支持下开发，通过这笔InnovateUK赠款通过公共资金提供的支持，将使Neuville能够加快数据处理和信息分发方面的速度，以自动化处理每个站点每秒产生的海量电网数据。这种大数据处理是使O&M技术能够远程解决许多问题和回答问题的关键，而不需要访问太阳能发电场。从而避免接触新冠肺炎，并通过避免乘坐共享车辆长途前往英国各地的地点并与他人在有限的空间中工作来保持社交距离。除了社会健康益处，该项目的结果还将：降低公用事业规模的太阳能发电场的运营成本；增强太阳能发电；鼓励更多可再生能源；减少与碳排放相关的运营与维护旅行；减少道路交通；提高工作满意度；以及提高技能。电力是一项基本服务。英国有1200多个公用事业规模的太阳能发电场(大于1兆瓦)，总发电量超过8千兆瓦(GW)。2020年4月，太阳能对英国总电力供应的贡献率多次达到20%或更高。要保持这种太阳能供应的运转和充分生产，需要大约1400名英国太阳能操作与维护技术人员的高技能劳动力，他们从事的工作是英国增长最快的工作之一。纽维尔正在完善这项颠覆性技术，并在英国将其商业化。英国是一个相对较小的太阳能市场，但出口机会巨大。该项目产生的工具和系统可以很容易地导出。Impact Funding的扩展将使我们能够在多个站点上测试和‘压力测试’我们的操作仪表板和定制警报(作为该IUK项目的一部分开发)，使仪表板能够精细化到“商业就绪”的产品。这一扩展还将开发一个组合级别的仪表盘和警报系统，供业务和维护人员使用，以便在一个仪表盘上远程实时监测多个地点。

Neuville Grid Data is developing new complex hardware and 'big data' systems that will enable individual workers in the UK solar farm operations and maintenance (O&M) industry to monitor the operational health of their solar sites remotely and in real time. Not only does this enable individual workers to undertake a large amount of their duties remotely at home, it also provides them with early-warning condition monitoring of solar farm equipment that is currently not available with existing monitoring and communications equipment within the sector. The condition monitoring early-warning element of Neuville's system is of benefit to society at large as it will enable solar farm operators to minimise downtime that results from unplanned equipment failures, thereby ensuring that a greater proportion of the UK's installed solar assets are available for communities' power consumption needs.Whilst the hardware aspect of Neuville's innovative grid monitoring system is already in development thanks to private funding, support via public funds through this InnovateUK grant would enable Neuville to accelerate the data processing and information dispatch aspects needed to automate the processing of the vast amounts of electrical grid data generated from each site every second.This 'big data' processing is key to enabling O&M tech to resolve many issues and answer questions remotely without need to visit the solar farm. Thereby avoiding Covid-19 exposure and maintaining social distancing by avoiding lengthy journeys to sites across the UK in shared vehicles and working in confined spaces with other persons.Beyond the societal health benefits, this project's results will also: lower utility-scale solar farms operating costs; enhance solar energy generation; encourage more renewable energy; reduce O&M travel associated carbon emissions; reduce road traffic; improve job satisfaction; and raise skills.Electrical power is an essential service. There are over 1,200 utility-scale solar farms (larger than 1 megawatt) across the UK totaling more than 8 gigawatts (GW). During April 2020, solar energy's contribution to the total UK electricity supply repeatedly reached 20% or more at times.Keeping this supply of solar energy operating and fully productive requires the highly skilled labour of an estimated 1,400 British solar O&M technicians performing one of the fastest growing jobs in Britain.Neuville is perfecting and commercialising this disruptive technology in the UK. The UK is a relatively small solar market, but the export opportunity is huge. The project's resulting tools and systems can be easily exported.Extension for impact funding will enable us to trial and 'stress test' our operational dashboard and custom alerts (developed as part of this IUK project) on multiple sites, enabling refinement of the dashboard to a 'commercial-ready' product. The extension will also enable the development of a portfolio-level dashboard and alert system for use by O&M personnel to remotely monitor multiple sites in real-time on a single dashboard.