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Extending Life of Solar Panels by doing Real-time diagnostics of Health Data:
Purdue researchers created an algorithm using the physics of panel degradation that can analyze solar farm data from anywhere, essentially as a portable EKG for solar farms. [...] Real-time diagnostics would ultimately inform better panel designs – the cost-saving "treatment" that could prolong lifespan and continue to cut electrical bills.
[...] The algorithm is in an experimental stage, but already downloadable for other researchers to use through a National Science Foundation-funded platform called Digital Environment for Enabling Data-driven Science (DEEDS) at https://datacenterhub.org/resources/14754.
[...] In the long term, the researchers hope the algorithm could show how much energy a solar farm produces in 30 years by looking at the relationship between weather forecast data and projection of electric circuit parameters. Integrating the algorithm with other physics-based models could eventually predict the lifetime of a solar farm.
doi: 10.1002/pip.3043
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 10 2018, @10:01PM
20 years ago, there was an "employment" offer in the Miami paper for EE/CE to relocate to a beach commune in Costa Rica to develop a system like this: remote monitoring of solar systems' health for optimization of battery maintenance algorithms, etc. Compensation was in the form of partial ownership in the company, food to be grown on-site by the families, production facilities located a bit over an hour away in San Jose'... The lack of screens on the sleeping quarters and lack of sufficient cash compensation to purchase return air-fare turned me off.
15 years ago, there was no more trace of that particular operation in that particular location.
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