TORONTO –Â Morgan Solar is excited to announce the certification and launch of the IV-DAQ, an in-situ IV curve tracer, and complementary Analytics Portal. The combined hardware-software offering is set to disrupt the solar asset management market by enabling deep data and insights of unprecedented quality and all-in cost. The novel IoT sensor is the latest innovation in Morgan Solar’s portfolio of light management solutions for the utility and building-integrated solar markets.
The IV DAQ provides accurate full IV curve traces as well as panel voltage, current, temperature and string current. The web-based Analytics Portal captures data from the IV DAQ alongside other meteorological sensors, and presents a suite of tools for presentation and analysis. Data capture as often as once per minute gives users robust data sets in little time. This enables tracking of key performance drivers that have been challenging to isolate and monitor to be validated and quantified, from bifacial performance to potential-induced-degradation and more. In addition, the integrated performance data is accurately translated to Standard Test Conditions and compared against the modules’ age-adjusted warrantied performance. The upshot is the enabling of a ‘digital twin’ of a solar plant with real time insights into a project’s potential, actual and warrantied performance.
“A key way for companies to achieve their ESG goals is to increase the uptake of new solar technologies, which in turn requires them to be bankable,” says Hugo Navarro, Vice President at Morgan Solar. “By using IV DAQs and the Analytics Portal to create a project’s digital twin, we’re helping to validate those technologies and point the way to better project design and operation.”
Morgan Solar developed and used the IV DAQ for around 8 years to support its own module development. The decision to release it as a stand-alone product was triggered by feedback from partners that it solves the problems that previously made attaining this data cost prohibitive. The units are easy to install, can be left in place and are effectively cable-free. Power is provided by the module under test and communication to the Analytics Portal via a Gateway is wireless. Beyond such labor and balance of system savings, curve traces are taken during operation and do not require costly downtime. IV DAQs also address the O&M industry’s need for degradation-adjusted performance ratio setting and quantifying the cost-benefit of its services.
