Renewables

Cloudloop combines a wide variety of sensor data to provide comprehensive insights for renewable site operations by aggregating, decoding, and visualizing real time messages sent from devices over satellite and other networks. Typical data types it handles include:

• Environmental parameters: weather conditions, temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar irradiance, crucial for renewables generation monitoring.
• Asset performance data: metrics from wind turbines, solar panels, or hydro equipment, such as power output, operational status, vibration, and fault codes.
• Positioning and geolocation: GPS coordinates, altitude, direction, and speed, essential for tracking mobile or distributed assets like vehicles, drones, or remote monitoring stations.
• Power and battery health: battery level, voltage, charge, and equipment operational status for both fixed and mobile assets.
• Maintenance and diagnostics: sensor readings on wear, usage patterns, alarms, error codes, and predictive health indicators for proactive upkeep.
• Security and safety monitoring: intrusion detection, environmental hazards, and real time alerts, which may include gas, fire, or smoke sensors depending on the site configuration.

The platform securely decodes these diverse proprietary data payloads into structured formats, allowing for filtering, grouping, and instant visualization, enabling managers to drill down into specific device, site, or parameter data as needed. This unified, actionable insight streamlines decision making and site optimization for distributed renewables operations.

Satellite IoT typically incurs higher upfront and per-bit costs than cellular, but Ground Control’s solutions can be more cost effective for remote deployments due to reduced field visits, automated data retrieval, and predictive maintenance features. The Cloudloop platform also enables proactive cost management and diagnostics to significantly reduce field maintenance and overall operational costs for distributed sites.

Yes, bi-directional communication is supported by Ground Control’s Iridium, Viasat and TSAT-based devices, enabling both data transmission and command/control for remote asset management, including distributed generation and microgrid setups.

Cloudloop Data gives you a single view of all messages flowing through the system. Once a destination is selected, incoming and outgoing messages appear on the All Messages screen. You can filter by direction, message type, device (“thing”), name, or date range to drill into the data you need. The devices can belong to one or multiple groups – or microgrids – giving you full flexibility.

Hybrid cellular and satellite solutions ensure continuous data flow in renewable energy projects by providing automatic failover and seamless coverage when terrestrial networks (cellular or fiber) are unavailable or unreliable. Devices are configured to prioritize cellular networks for data transmission. This allows IoT devices to use cellular connectivity for high bandwidth, low latency transmission when coverage exists, and switch to satellite communication when remote operations move outside terrestrial coverage or during outages.

Further, by integrating different technologies (e.g., LTE cellular and Iridium satellite), hybrid connectivity systems protect renewable operations against environmental factors, network faults, or cyberattacks that might degrade a single communication channel.

We offer highly secure, non-Internet-networked options. TSAT provides a private satellite network with data routed via an on-site hub rather than through public satellite ground stations, ensuring complete independence from public internet infrastructure. This greatly reduces the risk of external interference or unauthorized access. Communications are protected with optional AES-256 encryption and authentication mechanisms. This ensures both data privacy and integrity in transit and makes TSAT an ideal solution for secure SCADA/telemetry transfer.

Satellite is extremely reliable. SCADASat by TSAT is engineered for 99.99% availability, and in real-world deployments in utilities, TSAT systems have run uninterrupted for 16+ years. The setup includes redundant satellite links whereby each terminal uses dedicated frequency diversity and separate satellite paths, ensuring outstanding reliability even amid hardware upgrades and environmental challenges.

RockBLOCK Pro is a satellite IoT gateway that utilizes the Iridium 9704 module with Iridium Messaging Transport (IMT). It provides true bi-directional messaging with end-to- cloud latency under 10 seconds. It supports payloads up to 100 KB, combining faster throughput with efficient, low latency telemetry suitable for responsive control. Available in two form factors, it’s IP66 rated and vibration tested, suitable for use in harsh outdoor conditions. It will transmit your IoT data quickly and reliably from anywhere on Earth with a clear view of the sky.

Yes, absolutely. SCADASat by TSAT supports industry protocols, including:

• DNP3: Fully supported through compliance with the global WITS standard, which includes the widely utilized DNP3 SCADA protocol. This ensures interoperability with standardized utility equipment.

• IEC-61850: Supporting interoperability between devices from different manufacturers, aligning with the global standard for industrial communication and automation in utilities.

• IEC 60870-5-101 and IEC 60870-5-104: These legacy SCADA protocols are also supported within SCADASat by TSAT, enabling compatibility with a broad range of existing telemetry systems.

• Additional Legacy Protocols: SCADASat by TSAT supports other established standards such as WITS, TCP, Modbus RTU/IP/ASCII, RP570, and more, ensuring coverage across both modern and legacy devices.

SCADASat by TSAT operates on a private, air-gapped satellite network, so telemetry traffic never competes with public internet or consumer traffic. Because the bandwidth is reserved exclusively for your SCADA data, you can assign message priorities within your SCADA configuration, ensuring alarms and fault codes are sent before routine monitoring data.

For Iridium network-based and smaller remote IoT deployments, devices like RockREMOTE Rugged or RockBLOCK Pro can be programmed to send alarm packets first during low power or reduced connectivity scenarios. Via the Iridium network, Short Burst Data (SBD) packets for alarms can also still be transmitted even if larger data transfers are delayed.

Telemetry data, including sensor readings, SCADA commands and status updates, is typically low bandwidth but requires high reliability and low latency. Typical telemetry payloads range from a few bytes to a few kilobytes per message, often sent every few seconds or minutes.

RockREMOTE Rugged is an industrial-grade IoT terminal designed for remote asset monitoring, which can support periodic transmission of compressed images or snapshots alongside telemetry data.

RockREMOTE can send still images captured by connected cameras, enabling remote site inspections or asset condition checks, such as a visual inspection of solar panel arrays after storms or snapshot imagery from wind turbines to check blade condition remotely.

Images are typically compressed and sent in batches, via Iridium IMT, up to 100Kb per message. This capability is valuable for renewables operators who want visual confirmation of equipment status without costly site visits or heavy data plans.

For live videos, we’ve partnered with Videosoft to bring their unique video encoding and streaming solution to our RockREMOTE Rugged terminal. The RockREMOTE and Videosoft integration delivers secure, real-time, satellite-based video surveillance for off-grid environments, with efficient, high-quality compression, on-site processing, and intelligent video retrieval.  This real-time video over connections as low as 1 Kbps is easily compatible with the 22 Kbps uplink available on the Certus® 100 network service from Iridium, makes remote monitoring of renewable assets more effective and cost-efficient.