Novasense Documentation

Novasense provides real-time monitoring from the power plant level down to individual inverters and MPPTs to detect heat-related issues before they escalate. Key capabilities include:

• Real-time detection of inverter and MPPT anomalies.
• Visibility into temperature-related performance degradation.
• Data-driven tools for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) and asset optimization.

The Novasense Portal provides a 'Power Control' alarm category to quantify unused solar power caused by active power regulation. Novasense calculates theoretical inverter power using satellite-based weather data and compares it against control commands sent by the client in near real-time.

Losses are determined based on these rules:

1. The control command value must be lower than the theoretical power, and the actual inverter output must be close to the control command value.
2. Inverters with outages occurring before a control command are excluded from loss calculations to ensure losses are explicitly attributed to power control.
3. Durations shorter than 15 minutes are handled via an interpolation mechanism within 15-minute buckets.

Quantified losses are available as time series in the portal and as aggregated total monthly energy losses in monthly reports.

The Tags feature allows for the organization and labeling of power plants. Tags are categorized into two types based on ownership:

1. Tags Belonging to Your Organisation: Tags owned by your organization. You have full control to edit properties, share them with other companies, assign them to power plants, or delete them.
2. Tags Shared With Your Organisation: Tags owned by other companies but shared with you. You can view and assign these to your power plants, but you cannot edit their properties or delete them.

The Novasense Portal uses two primary approaches to calculate theoretical power (the calculated output of a solar plant based on weather and technical characteristics):

1. A physics-based model (most widely used), which acts as a detailed simulation.
2. A machine-learning model, which relies on the actual historical production of each inverter.

To prevent energy losses, the Maximum Power Point (MPP) voltage of the module strings must remain higher than the inverter's minimum input voltage under the most unfavorable conditions (typically summer). Two primary factors must be accounted for during sizing:

1. Grid Voltage Increase: High local PV production in summer can increase phase voltage (e.g., exceeding 240 V), which in turn increases the minimum DC voltage required by the inverter.
2. Module Voltage Decrease: High cell temperatures (60-70°C) can cause the nominal voltage of solar modules to drop by approximately 15%.

Sizing Recommendation: Do not rely solely on the nominal minimum input voltage in the datasheet. Include a margin to cover DC cable losses, long-term module degradation, mismatch, and local shading to ensure the MPP voltage never falls below the actual required input voltage.

To begin the onboarding process for a new plant in the Novasense Portal, the following documentation must be provided to Novasense to ensure metadata quality:

• A completed Onboarding Form Template
• String wiring plans
• Inverter datasheets
• Solar module datasheets
• Information regarding the data sources used

Accuracy in these documents is critical to avoid delays or additional effort in subsequent onboarding steps.