With increasing pressure to cut carbon emissions globally, the retort will be to find innovative technologies that can address issues in renewable energy production. Machine-to-machine (M2M) has taken the leap forward in optimizing energy production, distribution, and energy usage.
WebNMS, a company specializing in M2M technologies and services, offers solutions to help solar and wind energy providers manage their assets.
For renewable energy sector WebNMS technology brings sophisticated solutions for some of its key issues in plant monitoring, fault management, maintenance and performance monitoring, says Prabhu Ramachandran, director-WebNMS division at Zoho Corporation.
Large wind farms and solar farms can have tens or hundreds of wind turbines and solar panels working together. In order to ensure the farms are operating safely, reliably and economically, a reliable system is necessary for the monitoring and trouble-shooting of the whole farm.
“M2M leverages real-time data collection and analytics. With M2M communications, myriad of physical assets can be connected, monitored, and controlled remotely, on-the-go!” Ramachandran said.
In windmills and solar farms, components of wind turbines and solar panels are subjected to irregular loads caused by variable climate conditions.
Traditional maintenance approaches, including scheduled and corrective maintenance have disadvantages in terms of (1) expensive operating cost, (2) time lost, and (3) downtime/loss of production.
WebNMSM2M’s latest comprehensive renewable energy solutions include Windmill Manager and Solar Farm Manager.
WebNMS Solar Farm Manager solution improves the return of a solar plant in two aspects viz improves the energy yield and drives down the performance issues like system losses, hardware malfunction etc., he added. The easy–to–use client interface coupled with big data analytics capabilities provides a clear picture of the remote assets, their location, performance, energy production, and alarm status.
Like solar assets, wind farm components also require constant monitoring to avert breakdown. Each wind turbine comprises of various components like water cooler, high voltage transformer, generator, blades, sensors, gear box, and hub controller. Therefore, a remote management solution is necessary to offer operators the means to control their windmill more efficiently and reduce maintenance costs.
WebNMS Windmill manager facilitates to measure, monitor and control turbines in real-time without field visits and ensures safe operation of these turbines by managing the overall health, Ramachandran said.
With technologies like Windmill Manager and Solar Farm Managers, providers can avoid expensive mechanical failures through the following:
– Performance deviations are identified and preventative maintenance is initiated
– Planned preventative maintenance minimizes risk of unplanned shutdown
– Maximizes the production and ROI
Commenting on M2M technology adoption in countries like India, Ramachandran said that the market is showing a positive sign in areas of remote monitoring, energy management, and security.
“In an era of data surge, companies demand fast access real-time data in order to make quick decisions.With the emergence of industry specific niche M2M applications,M2M is being considered in new areas where traditional SCADA type high-cost solutions were being used,” he added.
WebNMS is working with the Government of India to frame an M2M policy. The policy aims to
With the spur in M2M market in India, the Govt of India has intervened and taken initiatives to frame M2M Policy. WebNMS M2M is coordinating with the Government in framing M2M policy. The project will look into different aspects of policies, standards, licensing, spectrum, KYC, security etc.
One of the challenges preventing the adoption of these technologies in large scale, according to Ramachandran, is that they are new and there is no history of full-fledged M2M deployment to compare and contrast against the business benefits, implementation costs, return on investment (ROI), and other factors.
To overcome this, WebNMS allows customers to configure their M2M application in smaller installations for a particular time frame to impart confidence.
It is also important to establish a healthy and vibrant ecosystem of M2M solution providers comprising hardware manufacturers, sensor vendors, software platform vendor, system integrators, and connectivity service providers will address this concern.
At present, M2M ecosystem is fragmented and the realization of an ecosystem might be time consuming, first, there are complex standards which varies across country and sectors such as home automation, fleet management, and smart grid. Second, the transformation towards connected business demands companies to innovate and reinvent their business model. Third, the M2M ecosystem requires powerful co-ordination of system integrators to stir the market and surge the adoption rate.
With fading revenues and plateauing growth in telecom industry, the intervention of Telcos to act as a key players in the M2M space has also stirred the M2M market. Telecom service providers are keen to host WebNMSM2M/IoT platform and white label the solutions to their own customers, Ramachandran said.
Globally M2M is growing in different verticals. Recent report forecasts that 50 billion devices will be connected to communication networks in next six years. Global M2M market is growing at a rate of 26.1 percent YOY with explosion in demand for the deployment of M2M applications in varied industrial verticals. Indian M2M market is optimistic with a CAGR of 33.81 percent, and it is expected to reach $ 98.38 million by 2016, according to 6Wresearch.
As the energy resources are depleting day-by-day, the worldwide focus has shifted towards achieving energy conservation and green energy with M2M solution. It is estimated that the Energy and Utility sector will be partially dependent on renewable energies, and will result in a share of 20 percent electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
WebNMS has adopted both vertical and horizontal strategy to tap the growing M2M market, Ramachandran said. In the horizontal approach, WebNMS’s highly scalable IoT/M2M Platform enables OEMs/enterprises to build applications quicklyfor their specific requirement. In the vertical approach, WebNMS offers ready-to-deploy M2M solutions Solar Farm Manager, and Windmill Manager, that provides end to end solutions across each market.
“We are growing strong in the channel partners and we work closely with our partners to deliver the best business solutions,” he added. WebNMS has signed customers from different verticals like banking, telecom, retail, logistics, utilities, smart buildings, and more.
Rajani Baburajan
editor@greentechlead.com