IOT News

In a solar PV and energy storage power station project for a renewable energy company, a key challenge arose from protocol incompatibility. The PV system’s PLC is responsible for adjusting solar panel output, managing the charging and discharging of the energy storage system, and coordinating grid synchronization. Meanwhile, the containerized energy storage system’s BMS (Battery Management System) monitors parameters such as battery voltage, current, temperature, state of charge (SOC), and state of health (SOH), and performs balancing control. However, because the two systems use different communication protocols, the PLC cannot directly read battery status data from the BMS. This leads to delays in charge/discharge scheduling, low PV utilization rates, and an inability to report battery faults back to the main control system in a timely manner — creating significant safety risks.

To address this, WideIOT provides a robust IoT solution. By deploying a protocol conversion gateway that acts as a "communication bridge" between the PLC and the BMS, the gateway converts the PLC's protocol to Modbus. This enables real-time data exchange between the PV and energy storage systems, providing comprehensive and reliable digital support for power station safety monitoring and energy management.

Key Functions

1. The PLC retrieves real-time battery status through the gateway, enabling automatic charge/discharge operations. This reduces response time for charge/discharge scheduling, lowers PV power curtailment rates, and improves overall PV power generation efficiency.

2. When the BMS detects abnormal conditions such as overcharging or overheating, it sends IO commands through the gateway to the PLC, triggering protective shutdown actions. At the same time, the gateway automatically sends alerts via WeChat, SMS, email, and other methods.

3. The gateway is equipped with a remote maintenance feature. Engineers can remotely debug, program, and upload/download code to the PLC from anywhere, greatly improving maintenance efficiency and reducing the need for on-site visits.

4. The gateway features industrial-grade rugged design and supports battery or solar power. It also includes local data storage and automatic reconnection after network outages — during a communication interruption, data is cached locally and automatically retransmitted once the network is restored.