With rising demands for solar energy, innovative use of technologies like the digital twin might be the success secret.
FREMONT, CA: The application of solar energy is growing steadily. In the last few years, technologies at the core of solar power harnessing have improved while market prices have reduced. However, operational challenges still affect solar energy farms' output, storage, and efficiency. Therefore, the energy industry is now looking at implementing innovative solutions that can add value and increase the production of solar energy farms.
Digital twin technology, which implies creating a virtual replica of existing facilities through critical data accumulation, has the potential to enhance solar power generation. Solar power plants can be monitored and controlled accurately with a digital twin. Some capacities that the digital twin technologies bring to solar energy plants are listed here.
Monitoring of the Plant
A virtual system fed with data in real-time with the help of IoT devices located at critical points across a solar energy plant can significantly improve monitoring capabilities. One of the significant factors that reduce the efficiency of solar energy production involves the inability of operators to maintain extensive plants. Detailed monitoring becomes viable by creating an accurate virtual replica of the plant through digital twin technology.
Evaluating Performance of Equipment
Digital twin technology allows effective analytics, which subsequently helps evaluate the performance of the individual and interlinked components. Photovoltaic solar panels' cells can be assessed to check for variations during changing external conditions. This allows plants to optimise and further enhance energy output from the same amount of infrastructure.
Effective and Intelligent Maintenance
The monitoring and evaluation abilities that digital twin offers permit the effective maintenance of solar energy plants. With real-time insights into systems functioning, it is possible to derive maintenance reports regularly. Besides, digital replicas also enable predictive maintenance.
Therefore, digital twin technology makes for a valuable addition to technologies that can power the solar energy industry towards increased efficiency and improved operations.
