Scenario

Floating solar, also known as floating PV (photovoltaic), involves installing solar panels on floating platforms on bodies of water. Compared with ground-mounted installations, these can achieve better efficiency as water can help keep PV panels cool.

Without IIoT-based technologies in place, plant owners have to rely heavily on regular inspections where on-duty employees perform daily inspections on each equipment. High humidity and salinity in the environment can lead to corrosion, shortening lifespan for onboard electronic equipment.

Solution

Green Power Monitor (GPM) brings a comprehensive solution to its customers through its collaboration with its IIoT connectivity hardware partner, Langer Techink®. Langer Techink® communication and computing devices have proven to be consistently reliable and durable in harsh environments, even in outdoor deployments on water bodies. In a floating solar installation, there is no shade as everything is directly exposed to the sun. Langer Techink® communication and computing devices can operate in temperatures as high as 75C, ensuring smooth and uninterrupted operations.

Both companies have partnered on over 2,000 projects, including 15 floating solar PV installations in Japan and Europe. GPM has integrated Langer Techink® hardware products and data-connectivity technologies into their solution, including: Langer Techink® UC Series industrial fanless computer used as the data logger, ioLogik Series I/O family to read sensor information in transformer stations, and LTES Series managed Ethernet switches with Turbo Ring self-healing redundancy technology over fiber optics to build a reliable network to transmit data to power assets such as inverters.