Architecture and experiment of remote monitoring and operation management for multiple scales of solar power plants

Abstract

The ever increasing solar energy is one of the most promising renewable energies, which undergoes the advance of new technologies. The field lacks a high-tech system that provides some flexible, affordable and high quality hardware and web applications for both domestic users in the scale of Kilo-Watts and industry clients in the scale of Million Watts to Giga-Watts. For this purpose, a general architecture with wireless sensor network and cloud service technologies is proposed for remote monitoring and improving the performance of various scales of solar power plants. It consists of a physical layer, a communication layer and an application layer. A prototype system is developed and built. Some cutting edge techniques in smart sensing, communication, and interactive web application are incorporated. Outdoor experiments over thousands of miles are carried out where two clients monitor and manage remotely the operation of the same solar power plant. Experimental results are recorded and compared. It shows that the prototype system works well in terms of automatic data acquisition, telecommunication, and data driven web applications. The associated products can be applied to the solar power industry.