Solar

Intelligent Solar Monitoring Solutions

Ensure Asset Protection With Intelligent Wireless Solutions

The rapidly evolving need to monitor and control industrial assets wirelessly is driving demand for our advanced wireless solutions. Cooper Bussmann’s industrially hardened mesh networking products give customers the greatest visibility into their critical plant assets and manufacturing processes, resulting in better decision-making, greater efficiency and improved safety.  Now optimized for solar applications, our full suite of wireless products meet the challenge of securely connecting sensors to control systems in the most cost-effective way.  Cooper Bussmann also offers site-specific solutions and services to deliver the best-in-class solar monitoring solution on the market today.

New Smart Wireless Combiner Box and System Software

The Smart Wireless Combiner Box provides a complete solution, integrating world-class electrical products with robust and reliable industrial wireless mesh networking.  The Smart Wireless Combiner boxes interface to an industrial-grade monitoring and control system purpose-built for solar applications and engineered to maximize solar efficiency in grid-tie applications. 

The solution monitors individual string currents, busbar voltage and temperature, and has the capability to interface to a weather station to provide ambient temperature, wind speed, humidity and solar irradiance. Minimal power is required, and is derived directly from the busbar voltage through a 600V to 24Vdc converter. The additional battery backup ensures continuous operation, even during the night.

Intelligent Wireless Solution Benefits

Comprehensive, Innovative, Reliable and Cost-Effective

Ensures Safety

·         Monitors critical components for safe operation

·         Takes action remotely (e.g., DC disconnect)

·         Meets NERC security encryption requirements

Improves Operational Efficiency

·         Ease of monitoring and fault isolation

·         Reduces risk of complete system shutdown due to ground faults

Reduces the Cost of Connections

·         Cuts the cost of connecting sensors to the control system by 90% or more

Provides Reliable and Scalable Communications

·         Unmatched wireless scalability as site grows

·         Increased network reliability via meshed nodes

Delivers Compatibility with Legacy Equipment

·         Ease of integration with third-party products and legacy equipment for upgrades of existing systems

A complete solution that delivers a new benchmark in
performance monitoring and solution scalability

Cooper Bussmann offers best-in-class electrical products with industry-leading reliable industrial wireless with a purpose-built operator interface.

Intelligent Solar Monitoring Solution

The Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system enables a complete solar monitoring solution for optimized safety and efficiency.  The solution provides real-time access to system-wide parameters, powerful user-friendly reporting and alarming, optimized data integrity and a dedicated historian capable of storing decades of crucial performance information.  Critical parameters are analyzed to enable rapid determination of system faults or simply allows the operator to uncover gradual degradation in solar panel performance.  Optional capabilities include remote DC disconnect and remote alarming via email, cellular or pager networks.

Industrial Wireless Networking

Cooper Bussmann’s ELPRO brand of wireless solutions provide unmatched reliability as an alternative for signal and data wiring. The wireless technology includes best-in-class mesh networking so signals get through the challenging environment of a solar field, as well as enabling systems to easily scale by simply adding additional communication nodes.  Manufactured to ISO 9001:2008 quality levels and UL certified for safety critical applications, significant cost savings are also achieved through the elimination of cable and materials, equipment and labor of installation, and costly ongoing maintenance. 

Smart Wireless Combiner Box

The Smart Combiner Box provides safe and complete monitoring and circuit protection, and comes complete with an integrated wireless module for simple installation and includes an integrated battery to power the electronics at night for 24-hour monitoring.  Offering up to 24 input circuits allowing configuration for positive and negative grounded arrays and features single or dual 90°C output terminals.  Fuses are mounted in a touch-safe modular fuse holder providing maximum safety along with integral disconnects. The cabinet is a steel or fiberglass NEMA 3, 3R, 4 or 4X enclosures. It is UL rated for 600 VDC for continuous duty in harsh environments and meets broad industry standards.

Intelligent Wireless Solution Features

Monitoring of Critical Parameters

• Individual string currents

• Busbar voltage and temperature

• Internal cabinet temperature

• Cabinet door switch for intrusion detection

• External sensors for solar array temperature

• Available inputs for weather station integration

• Optional internal smoke alarm

Industrial Wireless

• Minus 40 to +60ºC temperature range

• Environmentally hardened and robust radio performance

• Proven long-range wireless mesh, with true peer-to-peer ability

• Military-grade secure data encryption

• Internal ModBus gateway functionality and RTU or TCP connections

Smart Combiner Electrical Ratings

• External or integral disconnects available in 200A and 245A

• Constructed in accordance to UL 1741 Standards

• Rated for 600 Vdc - continuous duty

• Touch-safe fuse holders and power distribution blocks

• 90ºC output terminals

• Fiberglass or steel NEMA 3, 3R, 4 or 4X enclosures with seamless gasket

Power Supply

• Busbar voltage-powered electronics