Global SunFarm data acquisition network, energy CRADLE, and time series analysis

Outdoor testing of photovoltaic (PV) modules plays a critical role in discovering the degradation modes, mechanisms and rates of materials, components and systems under real world climate conditions. The Solar Durability and Lifetime Extension (SDLE) center at Case Western Reserve University has established a highly instrumented outdoor test facility, the SDLE SunFarm. In order to study PV module performance under different climatic conditions, a global SunFarm network was established with nine PV outdoor test beds across the world. Energy CRADLE is an ontology driven database acquisition tool which is being developed to effectively store, analyze and query huge data sets generated by the SunFarms. The data collected from all these data sources will stream back to a MySQL database. A front end user interface was built for the purpose of data inquiry, equipment registration, maintenance, and metrology cross check. Design and characteristics of SunFarms are introduced. SunFarm informatics and two case studies will be discussed in this article.