Written by Nigel Dawbarn, Sales & Marketing Manager – Industry Management
I write this with the sun blasting in the window – it’s cold but sunny, the best of winter days. We have experienced increased activity in the solar market over the last few months and with our improved range of solutions available, the outlook is a sunny one!
We have recently introduced our Integrated PV Park Management range of solutions, which include String Combiner boxes, Data Loggers, Weather Stations and Feed-in Management (export limitation) solutions. These solutions can potentially be linked to a SCADA and portal solution.
We also offer DC String monitoring based on Phoenix Contact’s Solarcheck in distributed String Combiner Boxes along the PV field with communication via modbus and data acquisition via wireless communication modules.
The Data Loggers are also based on PLCnext PLCs which, with an auto-detection mode of the connected devices, reduces commissioning time significantly. The PLCnext PLC enables us to incorporate algorithms written in high level language with PLC standard code according to IEC61131-3 – further information here.
Upper level of data logging and park management is also based on PLCnext PLCs and with the essential wireless product family for communication this can reduce the effort of the required groundworks – a big win when it comes to retro-fitting comms on site.
Our weather stations correspond to the monitoring standard IEC 617254-1 class A for utility scale PV-parks with auto-detection of sensors, which, again, reduces commissioning time.
The web-portal offers easy start up, thanks to automatic detection of all park devices with all assets available at a glance for an owner’s view. The portal dashboard gives an optimum production data overview as well as commercial reports.
In summary, from data acquisition on string level up to feed-in management and visualisation, we offer complete seamless solutions for PV park management to secure highly reliable operation of PV Systems.
I hope your outlook is as sunny as ours!
For more information, contact Nigel on 07584 514958 or email ndawbarn@phoenixcontact.com
