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September 14, 2021 | Stijn Stevens

Monitoring, Control and Big Data

Push the performance of power plant portfolios to the next level

As an enthusiastic supporter of renewable energies, I am convinced that the PV sector is heading towards its heyday. The amount of solar energy that reaches the Earth day in, day out is remarkable and makes PV one of the most valuable and sustainable energy resources we currently have access to. Nevertheless, we are only using a fraction of its potential. In view of the major challenges the climate change is imposing on us with all their consequences, it is essential to set on 100% renewable resources, now.

Exactly this drives us at meteocontrol. Our monitoring and in-depth analysis allow us to push the performance limits of solar plants further and thereby optimise the design and planning of new plants along with the utilization of equipment. By that, we keep an eye on all the key stakeholders on the global market and provide customers from all market sectors with customised relevant information.

Intermittency mitigation is inherently coupled with renewable resources in the future and we as meteocontrol need to properly address this. It is our objective to extend our monitoring, control and supporting solutions to other renewable energy resources, storage and a combination thereof. For quite some time now, the market has been moving towards combining various sustainable energy resources in virtual power plants. We will develop a solution that enables easy, fast and optimal operation of mixed portfolios and thus maximizes its economic value.

Our data directly creates added value for our international customers. By the intelligent use of AI on the numerous portfolios that we manage worldwide, we can identify system characteristics otherwise hidden to the individual customer. This statistical knowledge offers massive potential for revealing the impact of different components on the site performance and thus it enables planning in advance. This puts us in a position where we can advise system planners and investors regarding the question of repowering and revamping. As an independent service provider, we offer our customers a very wide range of technical services and would like to further expand our range to all sectors and technologies in the future, especially storage technologies.

Technically speaking, turning to 100% renewable energy supply is indeed realistic if we further invest in finding sustainable storage solutions and successfully deploy the required capacity. The message from scientists is clear: it is time to take drastic measures. Politicians need to take responsibility and pave the way for 100% renewables. In my opinion, it is the best contribution we could ever make to our own future.

We at meteocontrol invest in the future of the world by searching for the next idea that brings renewables a step closer to conquering the world. I believe that the global ‘energy revolution’ is at our doorstep and we, individuals as well as companies, have to devote ourselves to this obligation. My colleagues and I feel ready for this challenge and are ready to do our part.

We are currently looking for enthusiastic team members to support us in this exciting environment and drive forward the key future issues in our dynamic development. We are outstandingly well positioned as a state-of-the-art employer when it comes to attracting the very best minds in the renewable energy sources sector and currently have a number of exciting job vacancies on our website. Since this summer, we have been operating a new office in Berlin and also offer a number of remote ways of getting started with us.

About the author:

Dr. Stijn Stevens has been the new Chief Technology Officer at meteocontrol since July 2021. The native Belgian graduated in Mechanical Engineering (majoring in Aviation and Aeronautics) and has since completed his doctorate in Electrical Engineering at the University of Leuven. Following his positions at SMA as a BU System Architect and Technical Manager for the BU Offgrid and Storage as well as long-standing CTO at skytron energy GmbH, he is now responsible for advancing meteocontrol’s technology development and operations from the new Berlin office.

 

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