The world of energy supply is changing, and companies are facing increasingly complex challenges. The focus has shifted from simply avoiding peak loads to using energy sources efficiently. In this blog post, we take a look at the challenges of modern load management and show what innovative solutions we offer at WiriTec.
Volatile energy generation
The ongoing expansion of renewable, volatile energy sources such as solar has permanently changed our energy supply. Companies increasingly need to take the availability of energy into account when it comes to their processes. After all, if companies adapt their energy-intensive production processes to the availability of electricity from renewable sources, they can significantly reduce their energy costs. Traditional load management, which aims to maintain a constant load, is no longer sufficient.
Research project: Using cameras to monitor cloud movements
Weather forecasts can be helpful when it comes to predicting the performance of photovoltaic (PV) panels, especially for larger PV plants. However, smaller PV plants are more susceptible to shadows cast by individual clouds –general weather forecasts are therefore not accurate enough for such micro-locations. That’s why we at WiriTec have launched a groundbreaking research project to provide precise forecasts of PV system performance.
With the help of a camera installed on the roof of our company building, we observe and analyze the sky as well as cloud formations, movements, and colors. From this data, patterns can be identified: juxtaposing the cloud information with the output of the PV panels, we can find out the clouds’ effect on the energy production of the plant.
Since other factors such as humidity, temperature, sun position, and wind speed, among others, certainly also affect the PV system’s performance, we have also installed a weather station that additionally monitors and analyzes these micro-situations.
By looking at, analyzing and monitoring this information using artificial intelligence, we hope in the near future to be able to predict ahead of time the yield from the PV system based on these factors. These predictions will range from a few minutes to several hours in advance.
This predictive knowledge about the energy production of the PV system will allow companies to control their processes at an early stage, so that a lot of self-generated energy is used for or, if necessary, storage facilities can be relieved or loaded. Our goal here is to enable significant reductions in energy costs for our customers.
The need to adapt to renewable energy sources is now a reality and we are happy to accompany you on your way there. Contact us at +49 6251 / 5835 – 0 or by mail at info@wiritec.com, if you’d also like to benefit from green energy and reduce your energy costs.