How the Internet of Things is powering the renewable energy industry

Recent electricity outages in South Australia, combined with a renewed focus on environmental damage caused by fossil fuels, has meant the country’s energy reliability and generation sources are high on the news agenda.

Home owners want a reliable energy source to ensure they don’t get a nasty surprise when the grid goes down, and power is a fundamental component of running any business.

With no power, how can the retail and hospitality industries process transactions? How can hospitals and schools operate in the dark? How can supermarkets keep perishables cool? Australians have begun to think about what makes the electricity grid stable, why it fails and how new and emerging technologies present a solution.

With its hot climate and abundance of sunlight and wind, plus enough space, modern infrastructure and a stable political system, Australia is the ideal location to drive renewable energy innovations. The Australian PV institute reports that, at the end of 2016, Australia had over 1.58 million PV installations, with a combined capacity of over 5.44 GW. We’ve also seen a move by utility companies to invest in clean energy to remain relevant in the future as they see the opportunity this presents.

Renewable energy management and storage solutions have begun to cement their place as solutions to our energy woes, and this is largely driven by adoption of new technologies. Innovations like big data, analytics, machine learning, the Internet of Things and the cloud are all at the forefront of developments in engineering, IT and manufacturing — the energy industry is no exception, and the opportunity to leverage these functionalities is huge.

Our homes are becoming smarter as the adoption of connected solutions and smart devices is on the rise. Home solutions that utilise the Internet of Things consist of devices and services that are connected to each other and to the internet and can automatically respond to preset instructions and be managed remotely with a smart device. Gartner states that by 2020, there will be over 25 billion connected things worldwide. In addition, its research on 10,000 respondents in the US, UK and Australia suggests that adoption rates for home monitoring are at 11% and for home automation or energy management at 9%.

Connected home products range from smart locks and lights to voice-activated music players and sprinklers that water at optimal times. As our homes become smart technology-enabled, so should our energy systems. The Internet of Things is a game changer for the solar revolution. Major players and new entrants to the energy industry are utilising its capabilities to create solutions that are smarter, more efficient and easier to control. This means residential and commercial users save energy (meaning more money in the hip pocket) as their systems are optimised.

Hardware solutions like battery storage will only go so far and, when new technology developments arise, end users will have to overhaul and upgrade their systems. Software (incorporating the Internet of Things and cloud connectivity) that’s developed for energy management results in a product that can be upgraded remotely with a firmware update. Energy is distributed where and when it is needed, optimising self-consumption.

An Internet of Things-enabled energy management system means home owners can be assured they aren’t wasting self-generated energy, therefore giving them a bigger kickback from the grid. On a particularly sunny day, when there is an abundance of solar energy being generated, the system recognises this and can turn on the hot water system, washing machine or dishwasher to use as much energy as possible before selling back to the grid.

Not only does this functionality contribute to a faster return on investment, home owners don’t have to compromise their comfort — if anything, comfort is increased. For example, air conditioning can be controlled remotely with a smartphone or tablet, meaning a house can be cooled when the owner arrives home or a pool pump can clean the pool while occupants are out and about.

In any purchase decision, customers are understandably looking to get the best features, specs and aesthetic with minimal effort and at the lowest price point. This is true across product types and is similarly applicable to solar storage and management systems. Cloud-connected devices can be upgraded as new versions of advanced technology become available. Rather than installing, reinstalling or manually plugging in devices to download, the market is moving to a place where upgradable systems are becoming the standard. New software can now be automatically pushed to products remotely. If there is an issue with the system it can be detected instantly, whereas in the past a customer would only become aware of the problem when the bill arrives or the power goes off.

With a rapidly growing and competitive industry, there is no doubt that systems that aren’t IoT-enabled or connected to the cloud will become irrelevant within a few years, if not months. Energy providers, whether that be utilities, distributors, metering providers or renewable storage and management technology developers, need to be prepared, both ideologically and technically, to take on this change; otherwise, they risk falling into obsolescence.

The stability of the grid

2017 is looking to be the tipping point for solar solutions becoming readily accessible to consumers at a reasonable price point. However, discussions around whether widespread renewable energy adoption is disrupting the grid or enabling its stability continue to be prevalent. We have seen instances globally, such as Germany in 2012–2013, where the grid has become destabilised by an influx in renewable energy and a lack of infrastructure to manage it effectively. Intermittent power caused residential energy prices to skyrocket and neighbouring countries began building switches to turn off their connection with Germany’s grid.

Australia is in a unique position to develop the tools and technology needed to create the next-generation grid — to lead the solar energy revolution and to do it right. To do this, we need real-time intelligence from storage management solutions that can integrate seamlessly into traditional grid systems. While energy used to be a simple input and output approach, this is no longer feasible due to the scale, spread and demands of the grid. ‘Smart solar’ is the synergy of reliable hardware and intelligent software, and is the answer to a reliable, clean and efficient energy grid.

*Luke Abercrombie is the Director of Software at Redback Technologies. With over 20 years of expertise in driving business development, achieving digital transformation and operational efficiencies through technology, Luke has strong international experience across a vast array of environments, including start-ups, Fortune 500 companies and not-for-profits in both centralised and geographically dispersed multisite environments.