‘Big Brother’ system designed to monitor solar power plants

The new system uses a network of synchronous sensors to provide energy and weather data every tenth of a second to more accurately predict solar power plant performance.

Solar power cannot always provide energy. Rather, we only do so when possible, as it depends on the weather. For example, a single cloud can cause a drop in production.

To address the uncertainties inherent in the operation of solar power plants, the Instrumentation and Industrial Electronics Research Group at the University of Córdoba has developed a new monitoring system that uses a variety of sensors to provide more detailed and accurate synchronized information about the performance of solar power plants. This is a Big Brother-style monitoring system designed to not only observe and predict the performance of these power plants, but also to coordinate auctions that set energy prices on more realistic terms.

The research is published in IEEE Sensors Journal.

The goal was to analyze how solar power plants produce energy in relation to weather conditions. To achieve this, the team took a device that has been on the market for several years and applied a new implementation to it. Thanks to these devices, a series of instruments named Enhanced Phasor Measurement Units can collect energy (current, voltage, frequency, etc.) and meteorological (solar radiation, etc.) data.

Importantly, this data is collected in detail every tenth of a second. In fact, it’s so detailed that it generates about 2-3 GB of data every month. Additionally, since these devices are synchronized with each other and located in different areas, including nearby solar power plants, the information they provide allows us to see what happened and predict what will happen.

“It is important to closely monitor the system and collect as much information as possible so that we can respond to any adverse effects that may affect the stability of the power grid,” explains UCO researcher Victor Parales López.

The more rigorous the monitoring, the sooner steps can be taken to isolate the system from potential disturbances by disconnecting the system and preventing the spread of the disturbance.

Now that the sensor has been fine-tuned and tested both in the laboratory and in Pozoblanco’s two factories and all errors have been confirmed, the team is now working on the second phase of the project: analyzing all the data generated.

This work is currently being carried out as part of the national project “Edge management of photovoltaic power plants based on an analytical architecture with near-perfect time accuracy”, with reference number PID2024-158091OB-C21.