Kantensprung Stiftung - Analysis Solar data Coal silo
Challenge
The old coal silo on the site of the Sulzer and Burckhardt machine factory in Basel has been modernised. The building now houses business premises and, in the course of this conversion, the facade and roof were covered with PV modules, which are being studied in a joint research project by the Office for the Environment and Energy of the Canton of Basel-Stadt and the Swiss Federal Office of Energy together with the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). The electricity produced will be stored in "2nd Live" batteries - discarded lithium-ion batteries used in electric mobility - to be used later by the residents of the site. With its horizontally and vertically arranged solar modules, the plant produces 16,400 kWh of solar electricity annually. The solar modules are coloured and thus are able to blend in with the appearance of a building without attracting attention. The tower of the former coal silo, on the other hand, was clad in four striking colours to better investigate the influence of colour on electricity production. It was awarded the Swiss Solar Prize in 2015.
© Martin Zeller
iRIX was commissioned to monitor the system and to provide an evaluation platform for the project participants. The energy and performance data of the PV system, the storage system, all consumers, as well as the feed-in and the purchase from the electricity grid are to be recorded. The data from the differently coloured modules is to be collected individually. In this way, the power reduction due to the colouring can be precisely measured and compared with the manufacturer's specifications. The monitoring is intended to optimise the electricity storage system and reduce external electricity consumption. The various data is to be combined on one platform to simplify the evaluation.
Solution
Through a fine-meshed measurement concept, all available measurement data is collected, recorded, correlated and transferred into a form that can be evaluated. About 80 measuring points provide data every 5 or 15 minutes. The data is recorded over decades. iRIX adds up these approximately 8.5 million values annually on the Big Data platform that has been set up. This data is made available to all participating companies for multi-dimensional analysis via web access in the open source environment. These analyses help to answer various questions and correlations that are of interest to research, industry and government agencies.
© Martin Zeller
Technical data
The old coal silo on the site of the Sulzer and Burckhardt machine factory in Basel has been modernised. The building now houses business premises and, in the course of this conversion, the facade and roof were covered with PV modules, which are being studied in a joint research project by the Office for the Environment and Energy of the Canton of Basel-Stadt and the Swiss Federal Office of Energy together with the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). The electricity produced will be stored in "2nd Live" batteries - discarded lithium-ion batteries used in electric mobility - to be used later by the residents of the site. With its horizontally and vertically arranged solar modules, the plant produces 16,400 kWh of solar electricity annually. The solar modules are coloured and thus are able to blend in with the appearance of a building without attracting attention. The tower of the former coal silo, on the other hand, was clad in four striking colours to better investigate the influence of colour on electricity production. It was awarded the Swiss Solar Prize in 2015.
© Martin Zeller
iRIX was commissioned to monitor the system and to provide an evaluation platform for the project participants. The energy and performance data of the PV system, the storage system, all consumers, as well as the feed-in and the purchase from the electricity grid are to be recorded. The data from the differently coloured modules is to be collected individually. In this way, the power reduction due to the colouring can be precisely measured and compared with the manufacturer's specifications. The monitoring is intended to optimise the electricity storage system and reduce external electricity consumption. The various data is to be combined on one platform to simplify the evaluation.
Solution
Through a fine-meshed measurement concept, all available measurement data is collected, recorded, correlated and transferred into a form that can be evaluated. About 80 measuring points provide data every 5 or 15 minutes. The data is recorded over decades. iRIX adds up these approximately 8.5 million values annually on the Big Data platform that has been set up. This data is made available to all participating companies for multi-dimensional analysis via web access in the open source environment. These analyses help to answer various questions and correlations that are of interest to research, industry and government agencies.
© Martin Zeller
Technical data
Total area of the solar modules: 159sqm
Nominal power: 23 kWp
Electricity yield per year: 16,400 kWh
Client: Kantensprung AG
Planning & execution: Baubüro in situ AG
PV system: Solvatec AG
Monitoring and evaluation: iRIX Software Engineering AG
Measurement data: Dreifels AG
Technologies used
Talend, Elasticsearch, Kibana
Further customer projects
Comprehensive reference database
Differently structured data can be visualised and compared at any time
