Photovoltaic Growth – India is moving with the times
More and more PV plants are being installed in India. The 8 GWp mark was achieved at the end of July. This reflects the country’s strong commitment towards renewable energy sources.
With the Solar-Log™, Solare Datensysteme GmbH (SDS) offers the perfect centralized monitoring and energy management system.
India’s move towards renewable energy has been ongoing for a number of years. Due to the high amount of annual sunshine, India is in a great position to profit from solar energy. That is why PV power will be used as a comprehensive source of electricity in the future. It is forecast that India will have 100 GWp installed by 2022. According to forecasts, India will become the fourth largest PV market this year behind China, the United States and Japan.
Environmental policy differs fundamentally from state to state in India. Most states use the net metering system. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Maharashtra are a few example of states using this system. Large PV plants should be used primarily for the continued expansion of photovoltaics in India. A further objective is to have smaller buildings equipped with PV plants (PV commercial rooftop market), especially in areas where there is no power grid or an inadequate one.
A professional energy management system is required to ensure trouble-free operation of PV plants and to provide individual support for self-consumption optimization and feed-in management. Solar-Log™ provides structured and expert monitoring. Moreover, the Solar-Log™ WEB “Commercial Edition” web portal provides the option to visualize data and to manage all of the settings and functions centrally.
Inverter-independence is an essential and unique selling point of the Solar-Log™ system. The Solar-Log™ is now compatible with inverters from 100 manufacturers, offering EPC/installers, project planners and PV plant operators a high degree of flexibility. In addition, the integrated components such as meters and string combiner box can be easily configured and visualized. The ZERO EXPORT function is becoming more and more important for India. This function has already been integrated into the Solar-Log™ and is already used by several plants.
According to a recent study conducted by GTM Research (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.) and SoliChamba Consulting (San Francisco, California, U.S.) on the PV monitoring software market, the Solar-Log™ has once again been named the market leader as an independent software vendor (ISV) in the residential (0-20 kWp) and commercial (20 kWp – 1 MWp) markets.
SDS has been active in the Indian market for the last two years and already has 1,000 data loggers in service. These data loggers monitor plants with an output of over 30 MWp. Here the focus is on the commercial rooftop segment. For this achievement, SDS received the Solar India Award 2016 in the category of “Solar Project Monitoring Technology Company of the Year.” In May of this year, SDS set up a small office and storage facility in Mumbai.
