Why solar storage solutions should be remotely monitored

Many more businesses are beginning to turn to hybrid solar storage solutions to provide reliable, affordable and sustainable power for their operations, writes Sherisse Alexander of WATT Renewable Corporation.

Proactive monitoring and maintenance are essential for businesses that need 100% uptime, but especially so for a country like Nigeria, with a booming telecommunications sector, which has become the backbone of the nation's connectivity and economic growth.

The importance of proactive maintenance of solar installations is underscored by a revealing study from Smart Power India, which found that only around 5% of India’s 3,300 government-backed solar installations were operational.

The findings are a stark reminder that a lack of maintenance will at best lead to underperformance, and at worst, result in complete system failure. The telecommunications industry, reliant on 100% uptime, cannot afford such risks, making proactive maintenance an imperative rather than an option.

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Optimising solar installations with remote monitoring

Remote monitoring systems (RMS) play a pivotal role in this context.

RMS allows for real-time data collection and analysis, helping to identify both existing and potential performance issues and maintenance needs. This approach is vital in the world of telecommunications, where every minute of downtime can have significant implications.

By spotting power output issues early, interventions can be made swiftly, ensuring continuous operation. This might involve auto-starting a site's redundancy systems or dispatching an engineer to get things back on track.

Furthermore, collecting and analysing data continuously allows for trends and anomalies to be identified, which is crucial for improving performance.

For example, in Nigeria, solar asset owners may experience a 30-40% reduction in output because of dust accumulation. Regular cleaning, guided by data-driven schedules informed by local conditions can mitigate this issue, ensuring panels operate at optimal efficiency. Monitoring also helps in assessing battery health, a critical component of many solar installations.

Proactive maintenance combined with RMS typically enhances ROI and lowers operational costs. The approach ensures solar installations are optimised, leading to significant savings on repairs and minimising downtime.

In addition, with proper maintenance, solar panels can perform effectively well beyond the standard 12-20-year guarantee, albeit with a gradual decrease in output. This contributes to the overall efficiency and longevity of hybrid solar storage investments.

Improving personnel scheduling and safety

Remote monitoring can also be used to improve safety and optimise site attendance. With many telecommunications sites in rural and sometimes hazardous locations, RMS reduces the need to attend sites in person, saving time, cost and carbon while improving personnel safety.

With data, issues can be prioritised, allowing the team to schedule maintenance work taking into consideration the severity of the issue, travel time, daylight hours and any security issues. Being able to diagnose the problem before leaving for the site also means that the engineer can take any replacement parts with them to hasten the return of the site to full function.

This will become more important as the number of telecommunications towers increases and as rural telephony is rolled out to extend coverage to remote locations with fewer users. With thousands more sites to monitor and maintain in increasingly challenging locations, data will be vital for achieving best case efficiency and reducing complexity.

Finally, although hybrid solar storage solutions almost entirely replace diesel consumption, often a small amount is kept on site to provide back-up generation in the event of an outage. Diesel thefts from telecoms bases remain common and remote monitoring can alert to theft as it happens rather than two to three weeks after the fact at an in-person visit. The security company can then be engaged immediately to follow up.  

The social benefits of remote monitoring

Beyond operational benefits, proactive maintenance plays a crucial role in societal welfare. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many services online, resulting in the transformation of everything from healthcare to banking.

Three years on, that transformation is here to stay, with better access to healthcare, improved financial inclusion and increased economic opportunities all thanks to telecommunications. Now, in many locations, proactive maintenance is no longer solely about 100% tower uptime, it’s also about maintaining a quality of life for the community around them.

Nigeria's move towards hybrid solar storage solutions necessitates a focus on proactive monitoring and maintenance.

With the aid of remote monitoring systems, the sector can optimise financial and operational performance, improve safety and reliability, and support broader societal needs, all while creating a future where sustainable and resilient infrastructure is the norm in Nigeria.