IOT News

At a mountain-based photovoltaic (PV) power station, the site covers a large area with rolling hills, dense vegetation, and significant changes in terrain. The maintenance team faces physically demanding inspection work, slow data aggregation, and an inability to detect sudden equipment faults in a timely manner. These issues directly impact power generation efficiency and increase labor costs. To address this, the company decided to deploy a new IoT platform for the PV station to enable remote monitoring and online inspections, ultimately improving work efficiency, power generation output, and management capabilities.

Solution

WideIOT deployed industrial IoT gateways to connect to the inverters across multiple PV sub-arrays. The gateways collect real-time data including DC voltage, DC current, power output, and operational status. This data is transmitted to the PV station's IoT platform over 4G networks. The system supports Modbus-to-IEC104 conversion, enabling remote monitoring, alerting, management, and data analysis for the PV station. As a result, the solution significantly reduces labor and material costs while improving operational efficiency.

Key Features

The gateway is equipped with RS485/RS232 serial ports and Ethernet ports. It can collect data from energy devices using protocols such as DLT645, CJ188, IEC101/103/104, and IEC61850. It also supports upstream protocols including Modbus, MQTT, IEC104, and OPC UA.

By binding data variables, the cloud-based dashboard displays real-time information for each inverter, including AC/DC voltage and current, instantaneous power, daily energy yield, and equipment temperature. An intuitive configuration diagram visualizes the overall plant efficiency and energy flow.

When the gateway detects abnormal parameters from an inverter, the system automatically triggers an alarm and notifies management personnel via WeChat, SMS, or email. It also creates inspection and maintenance work orders within the work order module, helping guide maintenance teams to respond quickly and improve reaction times.

The system automatically generates daily and monthly reports, comparing historical solar irradiation data with actual power generation to accurately calculate the performance ratio (PR). These insights support data-driven decisions regarding panel cleaning and replacement of underperforming equipment, enabling optimal allocation of labor, spare parts, and other resources.

The gateway is built with industrial-grade features, including wide temperature and voltage tolerance, strong interference resistance, and rugged durability. It also supports functions such as reconnection after network failure anddata resumption after interruption, ensuring stable long-term operation in outdoor environments and maintaining data integrity and completeness.