Above Surveying, a UK-based services and software company, has announced the addition of large-scale PV condition monitoring to its Solargain digital twin tool as a result of its collaboration with Kiwa PI Berlin and 2DegreesKelvin.
British services and software company Above Surveying has added condition monitoring and quality assurance support to its digital twin tool for large-scale PV – Solargain.
The expanded functionality is made possible through collaboration with Germany-based Kiwa PI Berlin and 2DegreesKelvin, based in the United Kingdom
“The geospatial spread of solar photovoltaics continues to expand, with adoption growing faster than skills,” said Will Hitchcock, CEO and founder of Above Surveying. pv magazine. “So we need to use digital tools and drones to work efficiently and accurately and maintain productivity.”
“We started drone research nine years ago. The large amount of data collected catalyzed the development of Solargain,” he also explains. “There was a need to take data out of silos and integrate it into one place. Now our data is becoming richer and more diverse to enable predictive insights and condition monitoring.”
Some of the other trends driving demand, in addition to the growth in the use of aerial inspections, are the increasing size of PV installations, the impact of more severe weather conditions and the use of newer PV cell technologies in the field.
Solargain is built for a range of users, including PV asset owners, operations managers and engineers, and supports development and management tasks. For example, design and topographical mapping, construction project management, thermographic panel inspection, high-definition inspection, operation and maintenance (O&M). It is filled with geospatial and electrical data unique to each solar power plant, integrates drone thermography data and provides data and analytics.
The digital twin technology supports visual inspections and serial number scanning. It can also help inform business decisions, addressing the problem of unstructured data, which can make it difficult for managers and asset owners to answer questions about return trends over time, the timing of investments in repowering, or about collecting information for warranty purposes. claims.
The latest functionality expansion is made possible through a partnership with quality assurance, engineering and inspection providers Kiwa PI Berlin and 2DegreesKelvin to provide subscribers with comprehensive access to module data starting from pre-shipment audits and inspections through post-shipment. shipping, post-installation test data, digitalization of assets and further operational monitoring.
“We believe the collaboration will reduce quality risks. In the future, we will add autonomous robotics, a drone-in-a-box solution, which will be able to perform 24/7 condition monitoring in the field,” said Hitchcock.
Founded in 2015, Above Surveying has worked on more than 5,000 surveys worldwide.
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