PowerLight

From RevSpace
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Project PowerLight
PowerLight.jpg
Show energy mix of dutch power generation as a pie chart on a LED ring
Status In progress
Contact bertrik
Last Update 2022-07-19

The concept

Draw the current dutch electrical power generation-mix as pie chart on a LED ring light, with colors representing fractions of a specific power generation source.

For example:

  • yellow: solar
  • blue: wind
  • red: fossil
  • green: nuclear
  • grey: other/waste

Power generation data

Information about energy in Europe is collected at the european organisation https://www.entsoe.eu/ . The section about electrical energy is collected in ENTSO-E. Data is available from this platform at a 15-minute interval.

TenneT is the organisation that supplies ENTSO-E with data from the Netherlands.

Information about ENTSO-E generation domain API: https://transparency.entsoe.eu/content/static_content/Static%20content/web%20api/Guide.html#_generation_domain

Power generation categories

The backend uses the following categories

ENTSO-E numbers the production types from B01 to B20 ("PsrType"), how these are filled for the netherlands:

  • B01 (biomass): always 0, not useful
  • B02: not available
  • B03: not available
  • B04 (fossil hard coal): useful
  • B05 (fossil gas): useful
  • B06: not available
  • B07: not available
  • B08: not available
  • B09 (geothermal): not available
  • B10 (hydro): not available
  • B11 (hydro): always 0
  • B12 (hydro): not available
  • B13 (marine): not available
  • B14 (nuclear): useful
  • B15 (other renewable): useful, but what is this?
  • B16 (solar): hugely underreported, *not* useful
  • B17 (waste): useful
  • B18 (wind offshore): useful
  • B19 (wind onshore): useful
  • B20 (other): ???

The solar power problem

In particular the solar power fraction is incomplete, but also the biomass figures are missing. See:

There is a model that estimates the solar fraction, also at a regional level, at https://api.netanders.io/, however use of this model requires a paid subscription.

What I'm currently doing for the solar fraction, is to use the ENTSO-E forecast instead of the actual solar numbers reported to them, see yesterday's wind/solar forecast. Perhaps this can also be done for the wind fraction.

Hardware

Parts:

Software

The software consists of two parts:

  • backend part that collects the power generation data
  • light part that visualizes the power generation as fractions on a LED ring

Backend

Source code: https://github.com/bertrik/energymix-server

Runs as a REST-like resource at http://stofradar.nl:9001/energy/latest (1-minute rate limit)

The backend uses the following categories:

  • solar = B16 (from the forecast document)
  • wind = B18 + B19
  • fossil = B04 + B05
  • nuclear = B14
  • waste = B17
  • other = B15 + B20

Returns a JSON-structure like:

{
  "time": 1657057500,
  "total": 9122,
  "mix": [
    { "id": "solar", "power": 0, "color": "#FFFF00"},
    { "id": "wind", "power": 4, "color": "#0000FF"},
    { "id": "fossil", "power": 86, "color": "#FF0000"},
    { "id": "nuclear", "power": 5, "color": "#FF00FF"},
    { "id": "other", "power": 4, "color": "#444444"},
    { "id": "waste", "power": 1, "color": "#444444"}
  ]
}
  • time is a unix time stamp in seconds, representing the end of the 15-minute period that the power figures refer to
  • total is the total current electrical power (megawatt), suitable for display (on a numeric display inside the ring for example)
  • energymix is an array of power sources, each with:
    • a short unique id
    • most recent known power (megawatt)
    • hex color, for display on the led ring

Light

Source code: https://github.com/bertrik/PowerLight

The Arduino sketch polls the REST API using HTTP every minute.

WiFi is managed by WifiManager. LEDs are controlled using FastLED. JSON content is parsed using ArduinoJSON.