With a vision of improving the future

Scatec ASA is a renewable energy enterprise with a vision of improving the future through delivering competitive and sustainable renewable energy globally. 

Scatec was established as Scatec Solar in 2007 to become an independent power producer in fast-growing markets. Following the acquisition of SN Power in 2020 and now producing wind power, hydropower, and solar power, Scatec ASA has become a renewable energy solutions provider.

Scatec builds, develops, and operates solar, wind, and hydropower plants and storage solutions. They operate across four continents and have more than 500 employees across different time zones and cultures.

In 2021 Scatec had 3.5 GW in operation and under construction. 

By 2025 Scatec aims to increase capacity to 15 GW in operation or construction. There is a need to streamline operations and manage assets, both on-site and centrally, in Scatec's headquarters in Oslo, Norway.

The challenge

Solar power plants are huge operations – the solar panels cover vast fields that are flat, and therefore difficult to get an overview of. Problems with soiling, shadowing and keeping an overview of general maintenance put great demands on the need for surveillance, data collection, and reporting. Without a system in place to cover such needs, operations and maintenance become almost impossible to run in a way that ensures maximum production at the same time as being cost-effective. 

The history

In 2011 Scatec set forth to build their first large-scale solar power plant in South Africa, and they had an understanding that they needed a system to help them keep an overview. 

At the time SCADA- and Asset Management platforms were not “off-the-shelf” products like they are today, and Scatec turned to Prediktor for help. 

Based on Scatec's knowledge of the PV industry, and Prediktor's competence with data collection systems and IIoT, they developed a system that collected and handled data reliably, with an easy-to-understand visualization of the data, with the possibility of making reports to all levels of the organization.

The data was gathered in a SCADA system on-site in the solar park, and real-time data was also portered to Scatec's servers in Oslo and collected in an asset management system.

This was the beginning of the product that today is known as Prediktor PowerView™.

“Scatec's focus has always been to have a system that integrates well into other systems, in order to prepare for future scalability. Prediktor has this focus; they excel at programming into existing systems, and they are extremely solution-oriented and can solve situations that look very complicated.” 

– Andreas Størdal, O&M Operations Manager, Scatec

It started with one plant, but today Scatec has over 30 similar assets, with 20 times the capacity, and Prediktor has delivered PowerView™ to all these PV plants. 

Also, Prediktor and Scatec have done several projects of research and development with regards to data collection, also involving IFE (the Institute for Energy Technology) and Equinor. 

There are two main reasons why Scatec has continued working with Prediktor over the years. One is the value their SCADA- and Asset Management platform PowerView™ gives in the day-to-day operations and maintenance of solar assets. 

The other is the way Prediktor works to solve Scatec's problems.

Reliable data collection and reporting

The solar power business is a competitive business, with a strong focus on keeping costs down on all levels of production. Squeezing out the last percentage of the performance of a PV plant makes a great difference in ROI for stakeholders. This puts a great demand on the efficiency of the operation of PV plants. 

It is a complex and intricate job to break down the data collected from a solar power plant to understand where losses in production occur, and what needs to be done to maximize output. Also, there is always the issue of data quality – how reliable is the data collected. 

In addition, Scatec has a challenge in owning assets across different continents, countries, and cultures. Therefore, a system that enables streamlining workflow across assets is necessary. 

The results

Prediktor PowerView™ aggregates data from the whole technical vertical of a PV operation. It starts with data collected from physical sensors in the panel, switches, and other components of a plant. The data are collected at all levels of the operation and fed into the SCADA- and Asset Management platform that aggregates data and converts it into actionable information. By contextualizing the data and converting it into actionable information, the maintenance and operations of assets are more efficient and thereby increase the output of a plant, which also increases the ROI for stakeholders

Giving Scatec full control of their data, from physical components to measuring how effective production is, across assets worldwide, PowerView™ allows Scatec to work in a more agile and streamlined way, reducing the need for manpower and allowing scaling across different platforms used in the different plants.

Photo: Scatec.