In our modern society, oil is becoming a conflictive problem. The generated pollution, the reduction of the reserves, and the price fluctuation are pushing researchers and engineers to look for alternative energies to better suit our needs for the near future.
ASSYCE Fotovoltaica SL is currently the most innovative company on the market of alternative energies. Always focused on the quality of its products, ASSYCE Fotovoltaica is constantly looking for the best and most innovative solutions for its customers.
The need of a constant monitoring of the solar power plants makes mobile devices a fundamental tool for surveillance and assistance of the large photovoltaic plants deployed worldwide by ASSYCE Fotovoltaica. In this scenario, the Apple iPhone and the long experience of iNVASIVECODE with the iPhone SDK play an important role.
To reduce the maintenance costs and increase the security of the large photovoltaic plants, iNVASIVECODE is developing for ASSYCE Fotovoltaica three iPhone applications that will be included during the deployment and the monitoring of the power cell systems.
iPhone for remote monitoring
ASSYCE deploys solar plants with an accurate and intelligent monitoring system that provides sensitive information of hundreds of thousands of photovoltaic panels in real time.
The analysis of thousands of electric and atmospheric parameters is combined with statical mathematical models to improve continuously the plant efficiency and avoid energy lost.
Using the unique iPhone SDK 3 features, specialized technicians will be reached by push notifications in case of avaries or anomalies of the photovoltaic power plant. Moreover, the integrated iPhone aGPS will constantly provide the position of each technician to make possible the notification to the closest technician reducing the time and the cost of the interventions.
iPhone as a remote monitoring system
To provide constant monitoring of the photovoltaic plants, ASSYCE Fotovoltaica SL provides its customers with a surveillance security system. Cameras and guardians are monitoring the whole plant. Besides the automatic monitoring of the atmospherical and electrical conditions, vigilants are requested to provide hourly updates of the inverter status according a fixed procedure.
The iPhone with its unique features allows the possibility to send the current position and a timestamp of each vigilant to a central system.
Reports are collected and used in case of thefts and vandalism.
iPhone assistant during the power plant deployment
The new capability of integrating external hardware and connect additional sensors or device to the iPhone SDK 3 extends the potentiality of the device and opens ways of solving complex practical problems.
The monitoring system and the maintenance of the solar plants of ASSYCE require the localization of each of the thousands of the photovoltaic panels. In this way, each panel can be immediately localized for replacement in case of avaries.
During the installation, each module needs to be recorded with its serial number and position within the plant grid. A dedicated solution is in development. Using an iPhone and its camera module each barcode will be scanned and stored according to a defined procedure suggested to the operator by the device. The database of the collected data will be used for system maintenance, making very easy the module replacement.
