October 18, 2024In News4 Minutes

New SmartHelio tool includes Climate Risk Assessment for solar projects

We are excited to republish this insightful article by Kelsey Misbrener, originally featured on Solar Power World, discussing SmartHelio’s AI-powered Suite. This breakthrough technology includes a Climate Risk Assessment tool and an Autopilot platform that enhance solar plant performance and reduce operational risks. The article highlights how these tools improve forecasting accuracy and provide significant cost-saving opportunities for solar project operators. We extend our appreciation to Kelsey Misbrener for this detailed and well-researched piece.

SmartHelio announced it is launching its AI-powered Suite, which can achieve up to 98.5% accuracy in GHI/wind resources forecasting and 95% in failure prediction, de-risking solar investments for both future PV plants and brownfield acquisitions. The Suite includes SmartHelio’s predictive Autopilot solution, which delivers predictive analytics capabilities, and the Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) tool, which leverages meteorological data and climatic events to help investors and solar plant owners make informed investment decisions.

“The management of PV plants is fraught with inefficiencies, primarily due to fragmented data and outdated reporting methods that delay decision-making and expose investors to significant financial risks. Addressing these challenges is crucial for improving performance and profitability in the industry,” said Govinda Upadhyay, CEO of SmartHelio.

Govinda, a physicist and climate expert with a decade of experience, has been at the forefront of developing AI solutions that tackle climate challenges and drive efficiency in renewable energy.

“Many tools offer market performance enhancements, but plants using SmartHelio’s AI-powered solution have seen as much as a sixfold return on investment.”

Govinda Upadhyay, CEO of SmartHelio

Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) Tool

The CRA tool is the only tool to integrate socio-economic data such as urbanization trends (deforestation, aerosol concentration) and other microclimatic factors. It forecasts solar irradiance and wind speed for a given solar farm by processing over 100 variables, including historical and real-time weather data and forecasts, local environmental factors like proximity to a lake, ocean, desert or mountain, global climatic indices like El Nino/La Nina, dipoles, or air, land and ocean temperature increases, and human factors like pollution and urbanization for a particular area.

Autopilot Platform

The Autopilot platform provides recommendations for future development and for operating the plants at the highest capacity with the lowest costs, enabling operators and owners to prevent downtime and reduce costs of operations/replacement by 80%.

AI-powered Suite

For the first time, customers using SmartHelio’s AI-powered Suite, which combines Autopilot and the CRA tool, can see not only how climate change will impact the future performance of their PV plants but also how they can take future evolutions into account in today’s decisions. The solution includes a sophisticated component selection feature, allowing operators flexibility in choosing their solutions to ensure the most effective components are used for solar installations, ensuring compatibility, safety and cost-efficiency.

Using the AI-powered Suite allows customers to lower costs, increase efficiency and increase revenue in their solar operations to overcome inefficiencies, improve decision-making and ensure investors avoid financial risks. By optimizing resource allocation, SmartHelio’s solution helps operators reduce costs and improve overall system performance without relying on a single solution or provider. In addition, the SmartHelio solution uses time-series data (current and voltage), even in an unstandardized format, to feed its physics-based algorithms and predict failures such as inverter downtime and tracker dysfunction.

Enhance your solar projects with SmartHelio’s AI-powered Suite. Mitigate climate risks and maximize performance with smarter, data-driven decisions. Contact us today to schedule a demo!