Skip to main content

Power control detection

· 3 min read
Marc Hauser
Marc Hauser
Founding and data Engineer

The share of solar power in the Swiss and European electricity mix keeps rising. This growth requires precise coordination between grid operations, electricity production, and market integration, based on a fundamental grid principle: at every moment, total production must equal total consumption.

Flexibility is therefore essential. Active power control of solar plants contributes directly to this balance. As always, Novasense focuses on transparency in these complex processes. The Novasense Portal now delivers a precise calculation of unused solar power caused by active power regulation.

An added value for asset owners​

In many situations, asset owners must allow active power control by the grid operator. With Novasense, they can quantify power losses precisely and verify that grid operators comply with the applicable regulation.

Active power limitation can strongly reduce power output or even shut down a plant. Without additional data, it is difficult to determine the causes when a plant is underperforming or fully offline. By integrating control commands, Novasense provides the missing context for anomaly classification and accurate loss quantification.

How it works​

Novasense computes the theoretical power of each inverter using globally available, satellite-based weather data. Clients can send the history of control commands applied to their plants in near real time. Novasense then determines power losses automatically based on the following rules:

  • The inverter power limitation must be demonstrated: the control command value must be lower than the theoretical power, and the inverter output power must be close to the control command value.
  • Inverters with outages clearly identified before a control command are excluded from energy loss calculations, since the losses cannot be explicitly attributed to power control.
  • Results are visible in the portal and in monthly reports under a dedicated Power Control alarm category.
  • Short power control durations below 15 minutes are also considered using an interpolation mechanism within 15-minute buckets.

Power control classification

Power losses associated with power control are quantified for each 15-minute bucket. They can be visualized as time series in the portal or aggregated as total monthly energy losses in the monthly reports.

Power control quantification

Requirements​

Novasense can provide power control loss classification to any customer as long as the power control data can be sent automatically to Novasense in near real time. Power control data typical inputs include time-stamped control setpoints and base informations about the power control reference (inverter nominal power or DC installed power).

Please contact info@novasense.ch to get more information about the technical integration of your assets.