Skytron energy claims the newest version of its remote PV system supervision software, PV Guard, has been designed to cope with the growing importance of Big Data in energy networks.
The company has launched the latest version of its remote PV system supervision software, PV Guard 2.2, claiming the updated platform’s capabilities have been upgraded in recognition of the trend for managing and incorporating large amounts of data.
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Big Data is something of a buzz-phrase, loosely used to mean the handling of around a terabyte of digital information – 1,000 gigabytes – at any time. Its potential applications in the PV industry are multiple, including balancing supply and demand to energy networks and grids, aggregating PV storage systems to act as one larger plant, or assessing PV plant performance, as in the case of PV Guard.
The new version of PV Guard apparently improves the clarity and ease of use of the dashboard, which was introduced in version 2.1 as well as more options for displaying and exporting charts and other plant performance data.
The company, headquartered in Germany but with international offices including a recently opened Japanese division, also claims the supervision of multiple plants can be brought under one platform, making operational management easier. This also makes the new version particularly suitable for retrofit or migration tasks, with the latter an area skytron energy also specialises in.
There will also be a 64-bit version of PV Guard available later this month, allowing for faster and more simplified processing of large volumes of data, the company said.
“In the PV sector as in so many areas, issues around Big Data are becoming increasingly important,” Hendrick Hoffman, skytron energy’s director of software, service and O&M, said.
To this end, the company has also launched PV Guard Local, which allows for offline monitoring and analysis of PV systems.
“…we have developed products through which large volumes of data can be stored over very long periods directly at a customer’s site without having to rely on an Internet connection. They open up entirely new possibilities in particular for areas with poor Internet infrastructures,” Hoffman said.
To go with the new monitoring software, skytron has also launched a new version of its server hardware skyserv Local, to drive PV Guard and PV Guard Local, based on the Linux operating systems.