EASY-PV InitiativeEGNSS high Accuracy SYstem improving PhotoVoltaic plants maintenance

4 - 5 October Prague

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Easy PV Consortium

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Reference Scenario

From “Global Market Outlook for Photovoltaics 2016-2020”, http://www.solarpowereurope.org/

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The needAs photovoltaic plants are aging, it is not uncommon that their whole productivity lowers

due to inefficiency caused by unknown defective modules on the plant.

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Example of anomalies

Mechanical anomalies Displacement and detachment:

environmental conditions (strong wind) or unproper installation

Functioning anomalies Hot spots: cell defect or cell cracks

(maintenance, transport, assembly)

Glass breaks : big hail, heavy snow, stones shot, maintenance accident

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State of the art• These anomalies, if many in a plant, can produce a significant power reduction and

this is the reason why a high level maintenance activity is mandatory in large plants in order to keep-up a good profitability

• PV plants monitoring is presently done: partially by remote control (by checking

various production data and technical parameters like power, currents, voltage, productions. Static M&C systems are not able to identify and characterize the contingent anomalies)

partially by means of site surveysthe plant verification is mainly done by visual and IR inspections. Normally the operator inspects the plant by walking on the terrain through the rows (in the ground plants) or carefully moving on roofs, normally holding the thermal camera in one hand and keeping “one eye” on the display and the other on the walking direction

Above operations are time demanding and expensive because not fully automated so that a huge activity of post processing is needed to finalise the analysis

Handheld cameraoperative cost

[€/MWp]

Drone based operative cost

[€/MWp]

EASY PV operative cost

[€/MWp]PV plants on the ground 750 500 300PV plants on the roof 1200 500 300

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Improving by EASY PV EASY PV consortium is proposing an innovative maintenance concept expected to reduce

the operative costs and improve the efficiency in PV plant inspections.

Advantages connected with the use of a RPAS based system are the following: Time and cost reduction (handmade IR inspections are time

consuming)

Result reliability (after hours of IR inspections attention goes down) No walk on PV modules (walking on PV modules makes damages!) No risk for operators

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EASY PV goal Providing a solution by integrating GNSS accurate and precise

point positioning and other state of the art technologies.

Low power and cost-effective solution.

Design of ground control station for command and control of RPAS.

Design of communication infrastructure between RPAS and control station.

Post processing of thermal images collected by RAPS.

Semi/fully autonomous monitoring and alert system.

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EASY PV solutionGALILEO available

SatellitesGPS/ GLONASS

Satellites

Final Users (Owners/ Maintainers)

RGS

RPAS

Service Center

EASY PVProducts

Photovoltaic Plant

M&C

Affiliation Network(Pilots/ Maintainers)

Pilots Community

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EASY PV model

Plant Maintaner Plant owner

EASY PV Front office Service

EASY PV Back Office

RPAS

Pilots Pilots Thermographic Operator

Expert Operator

RPAS

Payload

100 cm

160

cmP1 P2 P3

P4 P5 P6

100 cm

160

cmP1 P2 P3

P4 P5 P6

C5C5'

C5''

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The need for high accuracy positioning Goal: To identify the affected panel (e.g.

P5) to be contingently replaced when an anomaly causes thermal modifications on a cell (e.g. centred on C5)

Every positioning evaluation of C5’ inscribed within the violet circle is uniquely associated to the true C5 center cell, thereby to the panel P5

Required Accuracy

• can be evaluated considering the exploitation of computer vision algorithm which acts as map matching for automotive navigation applications

• is half the value of the shorter panel side: order of 50 cm.

C1 C2

P1 P2

C4

P4 P5

C5''

C5C5'

C1 C2

P1 P2

C4

P4 P5

C5C5'

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EasyPV RPAS Operations are conducted in the airspace Civil Aviation Regulations fully apply

Main principles of Aviation Law are well defined, but specific rules on RPAS are under development (or already in place!) by:o ICAOo EASA (currently for RPAS with MTOM>150 kg, mandate extension in process)o National Aviation Authorities

At the moment the technical (industrial) standards for civil drones have to be defined. Standardization bodies are working to the subject:o EUROCAEo RTCA

EasyPV has a in place a continuous assessment process for these aspects

Regulation and standards

Project Schedule

Start: Febraury 2016End: January 2018Duration: 24 months

... Now we are in the consolidation phase of CDR Planned on 8 November

Product Industrialization

Sales Network Implementation

Road Map

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fabio.menichetti@grupposistematica.itwww.easy-pv.eu