A report by IEA estimates that two-thirds of the energy consumed in the world are from conventional sources. Due to the advancement of technology Energy Efficiency Management has become a necessity for companies today.
Webdyn, a France-based technology company industrializes material and software solutions for M2M communication in the Energy, Environment, Smart Grids, and Transport markets. The European company has been working for over 15 years to provide industry innovative and cost-effective solutions that businesses require to monitor their distant equipment.
In an exclusive interview with TechGenyz Herve Bibollet, Managing Director of Webdyn shares about his companies, technology, business plan and more.
Table of Contents
TG: How you’d like to define your business and goal?
HB: Webdyn develops and commercializes data loggers dedicated to the monitoring of solar installations of small or average sizes. These gateways enable to control of the production and consumption of solar energies. Managing data has become an important factor in measuring the success of a business and our solutions collect functional parameters, job data, and data of the environment of the installation. Our solution collects data from the field automatically and sends it to the information system of the client. The client can read those data thank to its own application or an energy monitoring software sold by a software editor.
Our high-end technology is based on internet protocols and radio technologies to provide innovative and cost-effective teleservices like remote maintenance, remote management, remote control, and remote monitoring.
Webdyn is a European leader in supplying multi-protocols concentrators which cover all the applications of teleservice and monitoring. With competitive and flexible products, Webdyn covers the entire management of distant equipment.
The range of specific products and services supplied by the company covers all applications requiring the integration of IP technologies in remote management or automated systems.
Currently, we have commercialized two main products in India -WebdynSun, and WebdynModbus. Our WebdynSun gateway is used to monitor and collect data from a solar plant installation. The gateway brings together in a single unit all the indicators from the inverters, the electric meters, and the environmental sensors like sunshine intensity, temperature, wind speed, etc.
On the other hand, the WebdynModbus gateway is used to pilot or to collect data from all equipment that use the Modbus communication protocol. On a single gateway, there are one Modbus RTU or Modbus TCP interface and one GPRS interface to communicate with the information system.
TG: What is unique about your company and what big problem your products are solving?
HB: We are in in the industry for more than 15 years designing software solutions for M2M communication in the Energy, Environment, Smart Grids, and Transport markets.
Our objective is very simple. We aim to collect heterogeneous field data and send it to the information system that helps businesses take preventive and curative remote maintenance of the installations and optimize their efficiency and their life expectancy. Let me make explain this in simple terms. Collecting data from different sources and providing insight Webdyn analyses 3 levels of data:
The first level of data, you can collect data from only one data source – is the meters. The meters will provide you explicit information which is the exact status of your production or consumption, and implicit information to measure if it is working or not.
Here is a video that explains how we collect Energy Data:
So, to improve the quality of the monitoring, you need to access the second level which is the parameters and alarms coming from the central device of the installation (inverters of solar plants, boilers or HVAC in buildings, etc.). With this information, you will have a much better view of your site situation. But still, you will not exactly know if the performance is good or not, and here comes our final level of analysis to have a real complete view. This level is constituted of all the environmental information is the third level of data, coming from sensors including irradiance, temperature, hygrometry, wind speed, etc.
Our product enables to manage in a single way heterogeneous photovoltaic plant from various brands of inverters, meters, and sensors. It also enables to the collection of data for any portal: the one developed specifically by the customer or one of the partners specialized in the monitoring.
TG: Which are the key technology trends that you foresee in your domain in the coming year 2017?
HB: In the last couple of years, we have seen a shift in technological trends in every aspect of the business. We are in a domain where data is fragmented and that needs a solution to cope with the needs of the industry where Webdyn comes in. Our protocols seem to standardize slowly, but we are convinced that there will always be actors choosing an owner protocol, and products such as ours bring the capacity to manage all the scenarios.
Besides, the local piloting of equipment to handle the instructions of production and the cases of error is going to develop and this evolution is registered in the roadmap of our product.
TG: What is the future of renewable energy? How your company is helping to promote sustainable energy resources?
HB: Renewable energies represent less than 12% of the total production in India. However, in its commitments to UNO, India assured to raise from 12% to 40% of its solar electricity by the end of 2030. A whopping 65% of the electricity consumed in India is generated by thermal power plants, 22% by hydroelectric power plants, and the rest comes from other alternate sources. The country stands third after China and USA with a 5.3% global share in energy consumption. Since 70% of India’s electricity generation comes from fossil fuels and we see solar power will be the major alternate source in the country. Our estimate finds by 2022 the solar power production in the country should achieve 100GW.
According to the electricity need, the solar plant will be of a different size. The grid-connected PV systems will be of the following size classes:
- Residential rooftop (typically less than 10 kW)
- Commercial and industrial rooftops and shade structures (10 kW to 1,000 kW)
- Ground-mounted systems (often greater than 1,000 kW)
As the objective announced to the UNO, India needs to optimize the production of long-term performance, the quality of service, and the profitability of all its PV systems in the coming future. As the leader in supplying multi-protocol concentrators with competitive and flexible products, Webdyn covers the entire management of distant equipment.
We are sure to align with these criteria of optimization and our gateways of monitoring enable the administrator of the installation to set up preventive and curative maintenance. Not only that our technology will fuel increase considerably the production of the installation at the same time it will decrease the maintenance cost. Our technology solution is made by maintaining high standard quality providing longevity of equipment and profitability of the installation is strongly increased.
TG: Please share something about your growth strategy in India.
HB: We are one of the leading companies in Europe with our Headquarters in Paris, France. It’s been 17 months since we started operating in India with an office in New Delhi. Webdyn wants to continue its integration into the local development and follow the government’s initiation of “Make in India”. We have already commercialized in the entire country and we will manufacture our products in India by the end of 2017. Furthermore, we will facilitate the traceability and availability of the products.
At this moment, we’ve two products for the Indian market but in our second stage, we’ll introduce other products in the domain of energy and energy efficiency. We already have a team of 3 persons in India. The fact that:
- We will continue to grow up
- We will manufacture our products in India
- We are in negotiations with resellers partners in India which means we will generate direct and indirect jobs across the country
Our product line is in a frame and by the end of this year we can make it locally in projects of utility, supported by the Indian Government to reach the objective of “100GW on horizon 2020”. Our motto is very simple – to act as a major player in smart metering and PV monitoring in India to achieve the mission of providing clean energy.
TG: On a concluding note, what message do you want to share with our readers on how information systems are changing our life?
HB: There is a relentless pace in the technological arena where new ideas, concepts, and technology are coming on board day by day. Since energy is the root of all the sustainable development that has been taking place, the entire world will embrace more Energy Efficiency Management processes in the coming days. This will not only increase the proper use of data to manage microgrids but also the scientific use of energy will help us to reduce the cost of energy production at the same time decrease pollution.
These changes are possible because the information systems enable the optimized use of renewable energy. This phenomenon will be fully multiplied and reach 100% when the storage of the electricity will be democratized because the information systems will be connected at the same time with the storage and with power production. I thank you TechGenyz for spreading our initiative to fulfill the Indian government’s aim to produce solar power 100GW by 2020.
