Our colleagues from the R&D department of BayWa r.e. Operation Services are happy to announce that their topical review paper "Trends and innovations in photovoltaic operations and maintenance" has been published (open access) in Progress in Energy. This paper gives an overview of the innovations shaping today's O&M sector by summarizing literature and current research.
Where did the idea of writing a review paper come from?
The idea of this work came as an invitation from the journal to contribute to a compilation of individual papers covering innovation in the PV sector. Considering BayWa r.e.’s technical background in O&M and the innovative work within the TRUST-PV project the colleagues are doing, they decided to accept the invitation. After some months of work together with the editors of the journal, the paper was accepted for publication in late June, under an Open Access license that allows free download and distribution.
What is Progress in Energy?
Progress in Energy is a high impact and multidisciplinary journal dedicated to addressing the wide ranging and important issues around the global energy transition. Invited reviews and opinion pieces by leading experts cover current research and emerging trends from a scientific, technological, eco-nomic, social, and policy perspective, with the aim of fuelling discussion on the future of energy re-search.
Here an abstract of the Papers
This review work presents an overview of the innovations shaping today’s photovoltaic (PV) operations and maintenance sector by summarising literature and current research. After a brief introduction to the market dynamics and state-of-the-art best practices, relevant insights are provided into emerging fields and key research directions are identified, such as the adaptation and application of BIM (building information modelling) concept and digital twins, which are topics already proven to help other industries to render processes more efficient, reduce costs and risks throughout the entire lifecycle of a project.
Moreover, it explores new approaches on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition architectures for remote monitoring of PV assets, highlighting the promising role of 5G wireless technologies such as Narrow Band Internet of things.
Finally, concerned about the growing amount of PV waste due to the exponential growth of installed capacity on a global scale, this article covers relevant Circular Economy approaches being adapted to PV, pointing out the most significant research and development efforts that are pushing towards a more sustainable, environmentally friendly and economically viable end of life management for modules and balance of system.
“It’s a great opportunity to show the community and the energy world the skills we are gaining within our daily work and our active participation in research projects to create a more reliable and trusted PV energy.” Said Pablo Sebastian Enriquez Paez (Junior Researcher Performance Specialist)
Daniela Ariolli (R&D Specialist): “I’m happy to contribute to this article, bringing to the attention of the readers the PV waste issue and how the O&M contractor can contribute to circular economy solutions, especially regarding the re-use of PV components.”
If you would like to read the complete paper, you can download it for free here.
Guillermo Oviedo Hernandez (R&D Team Leader): “I hope readers find it useful and I hope this publication gives greater visibility to our work”
