In part one of this series, we highlighted the siloed, disparate, and disconnected nature of the current DER ecosystem. We discussed how our participation in the SEPA Plug and Play DER Challenge drove industry-wide thinking and action toward developing an Energy Services Interface (ESI) and how that structure painted energy management not as a network of pieces of equipment, but rather as a continuous stream of energy services.

The big picture ideas behind Ecosuite and the open source SolarNetwork have always embraced the concept of generified or abstracted interactions with DER. This more recent ESI work within the Plug and Play DER Challenge just re-emphasized the significance of our silo busting approach.

This week, we’re going to dive further into key partnerships that have empowered Ecosuite to innovate in silo busting. We’ll look at our innovations in heterogeneous hardware environments and how this translates into innovations for portfolios of C&I systems, including the impact of frictionless data transfer which translates to financial diligence and liquidity benefits.

If you are wondering exactly what we are talking about here, from a hardware or data source perspective, it’s everything including Solar PV, EV chargers, Vehicles, Energy Storage, Building Management Systems, energy meters, pyranometers, water meters, thermistors, weather stations, grid prices, cloud based data services, cameras and any other relevant devices or data streams in the DER industry.  We bust silos for all of these and more.

Getting to the Source of it – Bring Your Own DAS (BYOD)

A Data Acquisition System (DAS) consists of hardware and software components that together provide the data conduit to most modern DER systems. For C&I customers, this is often located at the Point of Common Coupling (PCC) between their DER system’s infrastructure and that of the grid. On the surface, this device is just another piece of equipment, but in Ecosuite’s case, it is a solution able to produce and consume configurable services. Ecosuite’s fully open source architecture is more powerful than the average DAS, with the ability to eliminate truck rolls via remote fixes and to respond to Demand Response events and other such grid level requests.  To reflect this reality, we don’t just call our solution a DAS, our solution is an edge compute node.  The capabilities of the edge compute node are a key part of how a C&I business can derive additional value from DER, reducing O&M costs and supplying project specific energy services to the grid.  In addition to this direct value generation, the edge compute node will become the best source of information for DER operators, providing many insights into how your energy systems are performing. 

In the world of Information Technology (IT), there is no question that the environment is inherently heterogeneous, and so it behooves one to “play well with others”. This, strangely enough, is almost a new idea for many technology solutions in the broader DER industry (the many existing silos are evidence to that).  But it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that the Ecosuite team has you covered.  Our response to this situation is to embrace the inherent variability found in DER projects (i.e. site equipment details and the associated network topologies).  Our BYOD edge compute node approach results in a low cost, interoperable and versatile solution running powerful production hardened open source software. With its inherent flexibility and toughness, asset managers can handle the requirements of virtually any C&I topology.

So with this approach, not only can you freely choose hardware from a range of suppliers offering a range of different capabilities and price points (see key partnerships below), but the additional value generated via the software is also beyond compare with configurable grid services, portfolio management, time-saving automation, bidirectional non repudiation, remote access, intrusion detection and fault tolerant data persistence all part of the solution. 

It’s this solution that empowers DER developers, asset managers, financiers, data scientists and grid operators alike, making them all more effective and efficient.

By leveraging open source architecture, support for heterogeneous gear, and uniform data persistence, Ecosuite’s platform can manage all of that complexity through a standard user interface.  Moreover, with over the air (OTA) software updates, new capabilities can easily be added to existing DER portfolios.  It’s essential to understand that this software is a community effort.  It’s not just the Ecosuite team building this, it’s a community consisting of different industry players who contribute by continuously developing, testing and opening new opportunities and markets via new open source capabilities. 

That’s the nature of open source software – it encourages innovation and iteration and inherently generates progress through network effects and increased use. The key is to continue building out this network to accelerate momentum within the industry, and to allow for a greater sample size of ideation to realize the strongest, most resilient, and fastest path toward our distributed energy future.

Key Partnerships and Network Effects

Having this open platform not only derives benefits for DER development and asset management teams, it also drives business relationships at every level.  The versatility of Ecosuite, being adaptable to any company’s unique strengths and expertise, fosters a synergy where the collective output transcends individual capabilities. For our customers, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement, as we can mobilize a broader spectrum of resources to tackle their needs through collaborative efforts with our partners. Partnerships that include hardware manufacturers and suppliers, industry groups, researchers as well as other businesses in the DER industry. Ecosuite’s aim is to be open and transparent, making it easy for everyone to benefit from these existing partnerships and to grow and strengthen their own unique relationships as they see fit.  Ultimately this allows everyone to amplify their own effectiveness via strong relevant business relationships and to benefit from the associated network effects.

This sort of arrangement can ultimately increase liquidity between DER portfolio owners.  For example – what if you could pour years of historical performance data, field technician reports, financial reporting and system metadata into a universal open data format so that DER systems literally become a commodity – traded between portfolio owners and transferred between different teams of O&M technicians seamlessly?  With a growing network of partners from across the spectrum of manufacturing, standards development, research and government, including entities such as Aim Dynamics, Phoenix Contact, AccuEnergy, Orange Button, SunSpec Alliance, PNNL, the U.S. Department of Energy, SEPA, and more, this is a rapidly progressing reality.

Two of these important partners in our quest for improving interoperability and deployment speed are SunSpec Alliance and the Orange Button Technical Group.  SunSpec Alliance, which represents the interests of the majority of quality solar inverter manufacturers, provides the data models that allow our software to efficiently interface with many different brands of inverters or kilowatt-hour meters using the SunSpec Modbus specification.  By supporting this single standard, an official part of IEEE 1547-2018, our field-tested SunSpec plugins can gather data from a large diverse set of equipment brands and models. Interoperability is augmented even further through the support of other standards and protocols, implemented in other plugins which can be included in our edge compute node configurations.

Orange Button Taxonomy offers a similar capability for universal interoperability, but for portfolio level data.  By adhering to Orange Button Taxonomy, Ecosuite – and many other software companies in this space – agree to agree on an orthography for the solar industry. This is how we communicate common concepts; so when we talk about performance data, when we talk about Product Spec Sheets, when we talk about the topology of equipment deployed on site or the hierarchy of Portfolio, Site, System, Device – we do so in a common language.

What does this mean? It means that we are developing the capability for rapid data interchange that will revolutionize the DER industry and the financial liquidity of its assets.

Hastening Progress

Expanding our own network has laid the bedrock for Ecosuite’s collaborative functionalities, and it continues to shine further light on the range of benefits that can be extracted from heterogeneous device communications and a common industry taxonomy. Ultimately we are talking about the massive untapped benefits to be had from complete interoperability.

The compounding benefits of a growing and diversifying user base further accelerates this transformation, a transformation that the DER industry deserves. And so the process continues, welcoming new users, testing and expanding.  Improving and expanding solutions already developed for underwriters, financiers, lawyers, contractors, O&M providers and more.

In Part III of “No Silos and No Friction”, we’ll discuss the process of introducing our first wave of business users to Ecosuite and how it streamlined their workflow, helped achieve PTO in record time, and became a common source of truth for all parties involved.