Skyfri aims to redefine Operations and Maintenance (O&M) of PV plants. A focus for this effort is developing cost-effective O&M systems for Commercial and Industrial (C&I) rooftop PV and battery systems, a so far underserved market. PV systems are an important part of the energy supply, and further growth is inevitable as PV is key to energy transition strategies - including REpowerEU. New PV capacity is rolled out in Europe; at least an additional 600 GWp by 2030, a large part of which will be rooftop systems. A similar trend is seen in Norway, where NVE anticipates that as much as 2/3 of the 7 TWh projected to be installed by 2040 will be on the roofs of C&I buildings.
Although monitoring systems combined with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and data analytics have enabled operators to implement data-driven O&M systems on utility-scale PV power plants (~10 MWp installed capacity and up), there is currently a critical lack of providers offering similar functionality at relevant costs to the C&I segment. Without new commercial and scalable solutions, the increasingly large part of power production made up by rooftop PV systems will be unable to implement sufficient data-driven O&M systems to ensure high performance throughout their lifetimes. The addition of C&I battery systems creates additional use cases.
Targeting both developers, owners and operators of C&I PV power plant assets, the main obstacle for R&D in this space is the relatively small scale and, hence, turnover, associated with each C&I PV system, combined with a large up-front effort required to handle data acquisition and tailoring and training algorithms suitable for complex portfolios of small and heterogenous sites.
Skyfri, IFE, and industry partners along the value chain will drive progress through 5 WPs over 36 months. The project is fully aligned with the topic “environment-friendly energy”, and includes cross-discipline research and use of state-of-the-art R&D infrastructure.
Skyfri aims to redefine Operations and Maintenance (O&M) of PV plants. A focus for this effort is developing cost-effective O&M systems for Commercial and Industrial (C&I) rooftop PV and battery systems, a so far underserved market. PV systems are an important part of the energy supply, and further growth is inevitable as PV is key to energy transition strategies - including REpowerEU. New PV capacity is rolled out in Europe; at least an additional 600 GWp by 2030, a large part of which will be rooftop systems. A similar trend is seen in Norway, where NVE anticipates that as much as 2/3 of the 7 TWh projected to be installed by 2040 will be on the roofs of C&I buildings.
Although monitoring systems combined with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and data analytics have enabled operators to implement data-driven O&M systems on utility-scale PV power plants (~10 MWp installed capacity and up), there is currently a critical lack of providers offering similar functionality at relevant costs to the C&I segment. Without new commercial and scalable solutions, the increasingly large part of power production made up by rooftop PV systems will be unable to implement sufficient data-driven O&M systems to ensure high performance throughout their lifetimes. The addition of C&I battery systems creates additional use cases.
Targeting both developers, owners and operators of C&I PV power plant assets, the main obstacle for R&D in this space is the relatively small scale and, hence, turnover, associated with each C&I PV system, combined with a large up-front effort required to handle data acquisition and tailoring and training algorithms suitable for complex portfolios of small and heterogenous sites.
Skyfri, IFE, and industry partners along the value chain will drive progress through 5 WPs over 36 months. The project is fully aligned with the topic “environment-friendly energy”, and includes cross-discipline research and use of state-of-the-art R&D infrastructure.