A virtual communication strategy for smart photovoltaic generation systems

Abstract

Renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic power generation is becoming a promising technology for modern computing and communication systems. Current power stations integrate multiple smart devices. Each of them uses a communication front-end computer to facilitate the data collection and transmission to the back-end servers. Compared to conventional power stations that use fossil fuel, the number of communication front-end computers in photovoltaic power station is nearly doubled, which causes maintenance and pricing issues. This paper presents a novel virtual communication strategy for smart photovoltaic power generation systems. We use serial port servers to replace communication front-end computers and establish a virtual communication channel to transparently manage communication. We implement the proposed communication strategy on a commercial photovoltaic power generation system. The experimental results show that the proposed strategy can reduce the costs by over 60% and achieve reliable performance.