The operations and upkeep (O&M) of a utility-scale photo voltaic undertaking is essentially apparent — hold photo voltaic panels clear, monitor inverter well being, keep the grounds and verify tracker mechanisms for put on. Sustaining large-scale lithium battery vitality storage system (BESS) installations takes a distinct talent set, though they’re largely hands-off and don’t require any weather-related repairs. However that doesn’t imply there isn’t something to watch, since BESS tasks really generate an infinite quantity of knowledge. Asset managers can assist portfolio house owners sift via the mountains of knowledge to make sure batteries are working at their full capacity.
Giant-scale asset supervisor Energy Components optimizes its prospects’ undertaking portfolios via data-driven merchandise. The corporate’s Unity Efficiency Administration product helps BESS undertaking house owners and operators with O&M duties, bettering uptime and yield. Photo voltaic Energy World talked with Robert Johnson, world VP of gross sales options at Energy Components, in regards to the asset supervisor’s work within the BESS area.
SPW: What sort of upkeep is recurrently carried out or monitored on large-scale lithium BESS?
Credit score: NextEra Vitality
Johnson: Upkeep actions fall beneath two broad classes: corrective upkeep and preventive upkeep.
Corrective upkeep entails actions like changing defective BESS modules (the parts that embody a set of cells), BESS racks (the parts that embody a set of modules), inverters or inverter parts, stability of system (BOS) parts like HVAC methods and distribution panel breakers, or hearth and safety-related parts.
Preventive upkeep entails actions like changing filters, refilling liquid-cooling methods, calibrating sensors, changing modules that point out extreme degradation, checking hearth suppressant methods, recalibrating state of cost (SOC) estimations and rather more.
Nonetheless, the flexibility to carry out these actions successfully rests on having a stable O&M technique and the underlying knowledge and instruments to execute the technique.
What are some suggestions you’ve for O&M methods for these methods?
Credit score: NextEra Vitality
Buying the information is essential, and it’s not all the time simple. BESS methods contain a whole lot of knowledge, and in some instances can symbolize a step-change within the quantity of knowledge from extra acquainted asset lessons like photo voltaic and wind. It’s essential for house owners, operators and O&M suppliers to grasp the significance of this knowledge and to develop a method for securing entry to it. Meaning understanding your community capability for repeatedly transmitting it, having the best communication gateways to gather it and the best upstream methods to course of, retailer and retrieve it.
After getting your knowledge beneath management, the subsequent finest technique is to develop a capability to foresee system failures so you possibly can proactively tackle them earlier than they happen. This helps keep away from expensive truck rolls and downtime incidents, which scale back revenues and should incur liquidated damages relying on the underlying contractual agreements. The important thing to foreseeing system failures is predictive alerting. Energy Components offers a rising library of early fault detection (EFD) alerts and occasions.
For instance, we detect imminent cooling system failures, which permits operators to intervene effectively upfront of great degradation or harm. On a latest event, certainly one of our prospects dispatched a discipline technician after receiving a cooling failure EFD occasion. After they arrived on website, they found the liquid-cooling system had not been returned to service after a latest upkeep exercise. Fortunately, they had been capable of return the system to service earlier than any harm was finished and keep away from the costly headache of getting to litigate who was chargeable for the mishap.
How does Energy Components purchase the information wanted to help these methods?
We get knowledge from the battery administration system (BMS) offered by the BESS integrators, in addition to from energy plant controllers (PPC) and supervisory management and knowledge acquisition (SCADA) methods. We purchase knowledge from methods utilizing communication gateways, that are usually deployed onsite. Nonetheless, we will additionally purchase knowledge from websites remotely over a secured community. We will additionally purchase and trade knowledge with different central knowledge aggregators by way of APIs (entry programming interfaces). In lots of instances, Energy Components is the supplier of the PPC and SCADA, which enormously simplifies the information integration course of.
From BMS, we purchase string-level sensor measurements of temperature, voltage and present, in addition to any digital error and fault codes. We will additionally learn this knowledge instantly from tools like inverters, meters and relays. We then use all this knowledge to find out if methods are working inside their nominal parameters. If they aren’t, our occasion administration system generates vital info that helps to reply questions like: Which machine is impacted? What’s the severity stage (how urgently do I must act)? What’s the ongoing income impression? Am I nearing any compliance or guarantee thresholds? Who’s chargeable for fixing this problem?
It’s simple to see how vital this sort of info is. In case you’re working only one massive BESS or when you’ve got only a couple websites with the identical OEM, you possibly can most likely get by utilizing the BMS or vitality administration system (EMS) on your monitoring wants. However as quickly as you’ve a number of methods or extra, and particularly in the event that they contain completely different OEMs and integrators, managing the torrent of knowledge is daunting, not to mention attempting to construct and maintain a coherent operations and upkeep technique.
Which knowledge is most vital for BESS O&M?
Let’s begin with the cooling system. Figuring out the standing and well being of the cooling system is essential as a result of temperature is such an vital issue on a battery’s well being. The extra analog readings and digital codes we now have associated to temperature, the higher.
Cell imbalance can be notably vital because of its destructive impression on system efficiency. These imbalances are usually the results of variations in manufacturing high quality or temperature impacts from thermal administration system design flaws, which result in unbalanced energy distribution on the shared DC bus and may shortly pull down the efficiency of adjoining strings. String-level sensor-based measurements from the BMS are vital for these diagnostics.
State of cost additionally warrants particular point out. SOC signifies a battery’s capability to discharge, and for lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) chemistries, that are predominant right now, they are often notoriously tough to estimate. Energy Components offers superior diagnostics that assist operators perceive the accuracy of the native BMS SOC estimations, and we’re hoping to quickly to have the aptitude of offering SOC estimations which can be extra correct than these offered by the BMS itself.
Different vital system indicators embody state of well being, spherical journey effectivity, cycle counts and depth of discharge.
How does O&M monitoring differ for BESS put in in New York vs. Arizona?
Essentially the most important distinction might be their differing climate profiles. Arizona is mostly hotter a lot of the yr, whereas New York sees much more snow and chilly climate.
For websites in Arizona, operators may focus extra on failure signatures associated to excessive temperature circumstances after which tune their alarming thresholds accordingly. They may have extra liquid- than air-cooled methods as a result of they’re extra environment friendly, so they are going to have telemetry particular to these methods. They usually could also be extra involved with mud, so they could have a extra frequent filter alternative routine. In New York, they’re doubtless planning for extreme chilly climate and even perhaps hurricane or flooding circumstances. They could be particularly interested by telemetry and forecasts from specialised climate knowledge suppliers.
It’s vital to notice right here that many BESS have service obligations, resembling reserve capability agreements, that require them to help the grid exactly when these excessive climate occasions are taking place, so house owners and operators should be particularly ready. That is additionally another excuse why it’s so vital to believe in your SOC ranges.
On high of that, most income for BESS belongings comes from only a fraction of the times in a yr. It’s essential for an proprietor/operator to know which days these are more likely to be after which plan upkeep accordingly. This may look completely different between Arizona and New York because of their contrasting market and climate dynamics.
