A Relational Conceptual Model in GIS for the Management of Photovoltaic Systems

Abstract

The aim of this manuscript is to define an operational pipeline of work, from data acquisition to the report creation, for the smart management of PV plants. To achieve such an ambitious result, we exploit the implementation of a conceptual model, deployed through a relational database to retrieve any kind of information related to the PV plant. The motivation that drove this research is due to the increasing construction of PV plants. In fact, following European and international investments that heavily stimulated the use of clean energy, the need to maintain PV plants in their maximum efficiency for their whole lifecycle emerged, to bring about benefits from both the ecological and the economic points of view. While the research community focuses on finding new and automatic ways to detect faults automatically, few efforts have been made considering the so-called Operation and Maintenance (O&M). A relational conceptual model may facilitate the management of heterogeneous sources of information, which are common in complex PV plants. The purpose of the present study is to provide companies and insiders with a GIS-based tool to maintain the energy efficiency of a PV plant. Indeed, it is a common practice used by companies dealing with O&M of PV plants to create technical reports about the health status of the plants. This operation, made manually, is very time consuming and error prone. To overcome this latter drawback, this work attempts to encourage the use of GIS in the PV plants O&M, which proves to be efficient to deal with fault management and to assure a good level of energy production. The developed conceptual model, tested on two real case studies, proved to be complete, cost-effective and efficient to be replicated in other existing plants.

A Conceptual Model for Geo-Online Exploratory Data Visualization: The Case of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…In this discussion, we motivate our research and answer to our last research question RQ4, which has to do with the benefits of proposing a conceptual model for Geo-OEDV, trying to identify the most relevant stakeholders of these systems. Conceptual Modeling has been previously used in GIS-related problems [67] also applied to specific fields (e.g., archaeology [68] or management of energy production [69]) but, to the best of our knowledge, this is a novelty for pandemic cases. With this formalism, we stress the importance of understanding in depth the tools that are currently driving the communication to the broad public of the pandemic, in its diffusion and implications.…”

A comprehensive review of unmanned aerial vehicle-based approaches to support photovoltaic plant diagnosis

“…By combining different data sources (e.g., electrical signals and images, such as EL, RGB and IRT), it is possible to obtain monitoring tools that provide much more information to users. In particular, Piccinini, F. et al [ 160 ] combined aerial and terrestrial data to be managed in a GIS environment. In their study, aerial data were taken using a UAV drone, collecting RGB images to build an orthophoto of the PV system and used it as an interactive map in the GIS application.…”

Preservation of Villages in Central Italy: Geomatic Techniques’ Integration and GIS Strategies for the Post-Earthquake Assessment

“…GIS platforms are containers for spatial information which, when properly managed, lead to the creation of query-able data systems, up to the creation of cartographic products at different territorial scales (e.g., geo-environmental maps) and for different purposes (e.g., thematic maps). The literature presents a plethora of works exploiting GIS for several domains, including private/public gardens [13], spatial analysis [14], decision making [15], and photovoltaic plants [16,17]. In other words, GIS allows visualising, combining, and managing heterogeneous data from different acquisition techniques sensor network sources, insomuch warranting data sharing and interoperability [18].…”