Case study 1: remote monitoring of a solar farm

Solar farms are widespread geographically and help tap incident solar energy into DC electricity. Each solar farm is composed of multiple arrays of solar panels connected in series. These solar panels, in turn, are made of photovoltaic cells. Photovoltaic cells have material characteristics that, when exposed to light, change their electrical properties (current, voltage, and resistance). Solar farms contain other infrastructures such as energy meters, AC isolators, fuseboxes, battery storage, inverters, DC isolators, cabling, mounting, sun-tracking systems, and grid transmission systems.

The entire infrastructure needs to be monitored to prevent sabotage, measure operational efficiency, monitor asset health, and schedule preventive condition-based maintenance. Thus, monitoring is essential for the high availability and maximum productivity of the solar farm. Since the infrastructure is expensive and farms are usually situated in...