The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, „The sun is new every day“. But what does this have to do with digitalisation? A major challenge in the assessment of renewable energy systems such as solar thermal plants is that their performance depends crucially on the boundary conditions, in particular the energy input from the sun. For solar thermal plants, advanced methods and digital tools are needed to decouple the system performance factors from the boundary conditions and ensure optional operation.
To make digital developments accessible to the industry, the workshop series „Digitalisation of Solar Thermal Plants“ was created by Applied CPS partner AEE INTEC. The first workshop in February was dedicated to the SunPeek software, a community developed open source tool for ongoing performance assessment and warranty procedures of solar thermal plants.
The second workshop was held at the end of June, where the newly developed and freely available handbook „Digital Tools for Solar Thermal Plant Monitoring“ was presented, together with a live demonstration of selected digital tools. Participants from eight European countries engaged in lively discussions on the relevance and practical use of these tools.
If you are in for a desert, please check out the workshop slides or download the handbook: Workshop #1 – SunPeek , Workshop #2 – Digital Tools, Handbook. And if you are still hungry for more, join us for the next workshop which will be held in November.