The solar and wind energy industry will increasingly rely on adoption of internet of things (IoT)-based technology and services for future growth.
ABI Research, a New York-based market research and intelligence firm, has forecast a CAGR of 21 percent in IoT-connected wind and solar installations between now and 2020. The total number of such connections is predicted to grow from about 2 million now to 6.3 million in 2020.
“The renewable energy industry fears that it would be less inclined to invest products and technologies if government incentives decline as is being expected,” Eugenio Pasqua, research analyst with ABI Research said. “However, IoT-based technologies and services will help optimize the performance of solar and wind power generation systems and reduce variability in production — two major shortcomings of existing renewable energy sources.”
IoT-based services can be utilized in the solar and wind power industry to remotely monitor energy production and the condition of equipment coupled with cloud-based analytics platforms.
They offer cheaper and simpler alternatives to the traditional means of control and monitoring, such as SCADA. In residential and commercial solar installations IoT is important for both suppliers and customers.
Besides, cellular connectivity will play a vital role in helping garner the majority share of connections by 2020.
Pasqua says the market for remote monitoring services for the solar and wind power industry is currently fragmented. Mita-Teknik is a service monitoring wind farms while ABB can monitor both solar and wind farms. Locus Energy and AlsoEnergy are two players in the non-utility sector in North America whereas Rtone and Solar-Log offer monitoring services in Europe.
Ajith Kumar S