8.3 GW of solar PV managed by GreenPowerMonitor including 10 projects larger than 100 MW

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DNV GL, the world’s largest resource of independent energy experts and certification body, announced a key milestone today with GreenPowerMonitor (GPM) providing monitoring, control and asset management solutions for 10 uber-large PV energy power plants in production globally. The total solar PV capacity monitored by GPM is currently 8.3 GW and is expected to reach 9 GW by the end of the year.

 

According to DNV GL’s Energy Transition Outlook 2017, Solar PV is expected to become a major contributor to the energy supply of the future and play a significant role in decreasing the world’s carbon footprint. By 2050, PV will provide around a third of the world’s electricity representing an increase of 85 times compared to 2015.

 

The highlighted PV plants, each over 100MW in scale, total more than 1.7 GW across the globe. Just one of these plants can produce enough electricity to power 30,000 homes and eliminate 469,650 tons of carbon emissions per year. The projects are located in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Chile, Europe, Dubai and Brazil.

 

The massive utility scale PV plants monitored by GreenPowerMonitor are a reflection of the global solar growth to come. DNV GL’s Energy Transition Outlook emphasizes the need to accelerate greater and earlier adoption of renewables, especially solar. A key enabler identified in the report is the importance of data analysis to optimize the performance of solar, wind, and utility grids and usage. For PV plant monitoring and control, this means advanced analytics that enable precise, real-time management at the plant and portfolio level with an ability to scale.

 

“Monitoring and managing plants of this scale requires advanced solar controls and analytic capabilities,” said Juan Carlos Arevalo. “GreenPowerMonitor is delivering this enhanced reliability and efficiency for solar generation today. Combined with DNV GL, we provide solutions and a level of service that is unmatched in the industry and ideal for accelerating the growth of solar PV.”

 

“The most pronounced characteristic of the energy transition today is the growth of renewable sources including solar. The second megatrend is electrification, which is part of the strategic decarbonization shift. DNV GL’s Energy Transition Outlook report provides fact-based evidence and new insights to help accelerate much needed change in our sector,” said Ditlev Engel, CEO of DNV GL Energy. “Solar is already the lowest cost, lowest carbon option in many markets. We expect this trend not only to continue but to accelerate. We see that the growth for PV will be driven by continuing cost reductions and performance improvements for PV, including efficiency improvements, manufacturing continuing to scale, and the system development process being more streamlined.”

 

The GPM solutions used to manage these very large plants includes GPM SCADA, a supervisory control and data acquisition system built for in-plant control of devices, communication with elements, and an immediate assessment of plant status. The GPM SCADA solution provides real-time intelligence of plant status with less than one second latency, supervision and plant operation alarms, in-plant preventive and corrective maintenance support tools, and dashboards for easy visualization of data and communication with all monitoring devices. Combining this in-plant control solution with GPM Plus, a central portfolio management solution, provides a full end to end solution needed to manage an individual PV plant and total portfolio.