Solar Energy Viewlets

Owned by Paul Ogle (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Dec 28, 2015 by Mark Fenimore
6 min read

: This Viewlet requires additional Niagara AX setup/configuration. Contact your distributor or Activelogix for details.


The Solar Energy Viewlet is the first of a family of “focus” viewlets targeting sustainable energy applications. There are two versions of this viewlet available depending on your needs, one for a single solar site, or another for multiple solar sites.

Single-site Solar Viewlet

The Single Solar Energy Viewlet has four views, plus a kiosk feature. It will display specific stats including: current solar power, solar yield today, grid offset, and current weather conditions. Also available is a savings tab that shows common conversions for kWh, Oil, CO2, and Dollars from the day to the lifetime of the site. A built in greentips slideshow, and charting that shows system yield vs solar irradiation is also included.

Multi-site Solar Viewlet

The newer, multiple-site solar viewlet is composed of five different views for focusing on solar generation data compared to on-site consumption.  It contains sliders to gauge real-time performance, counters that display live energy generation and equivalents such as CO2. A slideshow of solar tips and a tab with various charts to view historical energy data are also included. 

If the solar site is so-equipped, the viewlet can track the system output relative to the solar intensity through the use of a “solar insolation” meter, sometimes referred to as a pyranometer, which measures the irradiance value in Watts per square Meter. This value is co-plotted on a chart with the solar plant output, thus providing an indication of system performance over time for a given level of solar intensity.

Installation and Setup

The multi-site Solar Viewlet was introduced in Periscope 2.2 and is configured in the Workbench tool, which is intended to save time in the long run.  Once a site is configured it is automatically discovered and used by the viewlet.  The viewlet now displays all solar sites on one viewlet so setup is only done one time per site in AX, rather than each time the viewlet is added. 

Step 1: Install the Solar Object

The first step in installing the multi-site Solar Viewlet is to add the Solar object to the station.  This object is found under the alxPeriscope palette in the Sustainability folder.  To install, drop this object anywhere in the Niagara AX Station. For each particular solar installation at a campus/site/location, a unique solar object will need to be added and configured as follows. The multi-site Solar Viewlet will then see each of the sites and allow the viewlet's user to switch between views of each installation. 

Step 2: Configure the Solar Object

Once the solar object has been installed it needs to be configured with the appropriate trends and points.  

The properties are as follows:

  • Location - This container defines the physical location of the solar site including Latitude, Longitude and Address.  These are required and will be used to populate the Map.  The GPS coordinates can be looked up on a site such as: http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html
  • Production Only Site - This boolean should be true if the solar site is not connected or comparable to a building.  If this is false the viewlet will not compare it to a specific building and will not include it in the Grid Power Offset calculation.
  • Cost Per kWh - This is the cost per kWh of the solar energy.
  • CO2 Emissions Rate - This value is used to convert energy to CO2 and is dependent on the region of the site.  The emission rate can be looked up by using this site: http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/how-clean.html
  • Accumulating - If this is true then Periscope will calculate the delta of the kWh trends.  It should only be true if the kWh trends are accumulating.
  • Building kWh - The Trend Ord of the building's kWh.  If the site is a Production Only Site this should be null.
  • Solar kWh - The solar kWh trend from the panel
  • Solar Irradiation Trend - The solar irradiation trend from the panel (not required)
  • Weather Report - The Ord to the Weather Report component (under Weather Service).
  • Solar Power - The live kW power point - this should be linked into via the wire sheet object.
  • Solar Irradiation - The live solar irradiation - this should be linked into via the wire sheet object.
  • Building Power - The live building kW - this should be linked into via the wire sheet object.

Step 3: Configure the Total Building Power

In order to calculate the total offset of the solar panels you need to have a value that represents the total building power (kW).  This value needs to be linked into the "Total Site Power" slot found in the PeriscopeService/Solar Manager. This link can be created by viewing the wire sheet of the PeriscopeService and linking the site power to the correct numeric point. 

Solar Energy Configuration

  1. The Solar viewlet supports the ability to have a custom slide show that employs actual site photographs if desired. This is an optional Periscope service. Contact your distributor if you are interested in this feature. If installed, selecting the check box and typing in your distributor provided ID will “play” a custom slide show.
  2. The remaining configuration items in this wizard need to be selected by the user, and are typically a one-time setup (if saved to the Periscope library).
    a.  Solar Power – These two configurations allow you to set the scale, with the max limit based on the number of sites online.
    b.  Solar Yield – Selects the max and min values of total kWh gathered over the day depending on number of sites online.
    c.  Grid Power Offset – Selects max and min values of power difference from amount generated vs. taken from grid.
    d.  Solar Irradiance – Selects an appropriate range based on approximate total W/m2 that will be generated at the brightest part of the day.
  3. Once Complete, Click “Ok” to save these settings.

Configuring the Site Server

If your site is using the Maps feature of the viewlet we need to tell Periscope to use the backup host.  This is a temporary solution to an issue we've encountered with Google Maps due to the deprecation of their Flash Maps product.  To work around this we need to set up Periscope to use "backup" host which is our activelogix.com domain.

To do this:

  1. View the slot sheet of the PeriscopeService
  2. View the Config Flags of the Use Backup Host slot
  3. Uncheck the "hidden" flag
  4. View the Property Sheet of PeriscopeService
  5. Set this slot value to true