The objective of this project is to create a dashboard that provides solar data in a clear manner to the general public.
Sponsored By: Solbridge
Team Members
Isaac Agyepong | Adam Steinberg | Nicholas Pourjalilvand | John Palfy Jr. | Luke Gardner | | | | | | |
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Project Summary
Overview
The goal of this project was to create a dashboard to be displayed on a TV or other public facing display that would show the performance and environmental impact of the array. The owner of the specific array for this project is St. Paul’s Episcopal church in Pittsburgh, Pa. The people that would be seeing this dashboard would be those parishioners of the church and others who frequent it. The people seeing this display are not expected to have technical knowledge of solar energy or its impact so the display had to be palatable to those without education on the subject.
Objectives
ItemDisplay solar information in a clear and informative way
Create a dashboard to display this information
Grab data from PVOutput to be displayed
Calculate new interesting and informative metrics
Approach
Our team first gathered sponsor input on the design and features for the dashboard
We examined a prototype wireframe and looked for feasibility of each feature
We did some market research through our sponsors and some local contacts
We then examined possible methods for presenting the dashboard, and after a thorough look into the various technologies, and a patent search, landed on using a web based angular front end application that utilized a third party data collection site w ith no restrictions on using data
We then focused on building the app to provide the greatest flexibility to our sponsors, providing them with many options and allowing them to have a hands on look at how the app was being built, as well as letting them guide the aesthetic choices
Testing was performed throughout the building process, and the scripts for web scraping and uploading solar info were made more robust throughout the entire process
We were able to check our dashboard against both Sunny Portal and PVOutput in order to guarantee the data was being transferred correctly
Outcomes
Create a process that successfully moves data from the proprietary SMA site, SunnyPortal, to open source PVOutput.org
Successfully display power, energy, and environmental impact metrics of the solar array
Ensure that the display can be understood by those without solar knowledge