Covolt

A solution that the customer could use immediately

The client

Covolt

The question

Generating insights for energy network owners.

The approach

Setting up a dataflow and training models.

Learnings

Dive into the business before you get into engineering.

Covolt manages business energy networks and is looking for a data solution that delivers reports to customers. When junior data engineer Iko Vloothuis sits in, his knowledge of the energy industry is limited. That is rapidly changing.

More and more companies have an energy landscape, which includes solar panels, charging stations and batteries for energy storage. Generated energy enters the energy market. With large amounts of data, Covolt optimises the technical and financial efficiency of energy installations.

How do we make reports personal?

Iko: “The initial request was to provide insights on yields. A data application was running and with it they wanted to report to customers what their power plant was generating. This required a dataflow that resulted in pdf reports. The route was not yet clear, we found out as we went along. We added more and more information to personalise reports: address details, energy consumption, how long a system is on, and so on. This is how Covolt presents to customers what the added value of their service is.”

There are not many employers where you learn and develop so much in such a short time.

Iko Vloothuis

Junior data engineer

There are not many employers where you learn and develop so much in such a short time.

Iko Vloothuis

Junior data engineer

Generating insights

Customers want to know when it is a good time to feed power back.

“As soon as too much is pushed onto the grid, energy feed-in costs money. Covolt controls the switching on and off of solar panels and batteries, we try to make that process transparent.”

“Our solution shows on a daily basis how many hours the panels have been switched off, how much profit that makes and how many kilowatt hours have been generated. We also make that information transparent for batteries, so customers can determine when it is a good time to feed power back to the energy market.”

Daily reports on solar panel activity
Overview of generated and consumed kilowatt hours
Transparent insights into costs and benefits

Transforming an existing platform

“Covolt had had its own platform developed. More like an IoT solution that stored data from Covolt boxes in a specific language. Those are different requirements from what we work with. The first challenge was to get into a system that was already down. In the end, we made a translation into our way of working so that it became easy to convert IoT data at high frequency into customer insights.”

“The existing platform was active within day-to-day operations. If you run calculations on it during a peak hour, a box might just fail. That’s why we unlock data at times when the sun isn’t shining. That way, our solution doesn’t get in the way of the operational business.”

From dataflow to infrastructure

Building an infrastructure that customers can use themselves

“Our process works in several steps. Data we extract has to be transformed before it can be poured into reports. You have to make sure everything is correct, in the right format and then written out to an app. We set up the whole flow. In consultation with the customer, you determine what information, how you want to show it and at what times. Then we build a modular and sustainable infrastructure. This allows Covolt to add reports or move pipelines itself.”

Mission accomplished.
When the follow-up mission

Optimal orchestration of training models

“With data from a solar panel, you can predict what you will feed back. We are training the models that bid energy into the energy market based on historical data, supplemented by data on the weather and the main energy markets. You put all that data into a model and scenarios are then created in it.”

Consultancy from engineering

Blenddata provides consultative selling training so that engineers understand the question behind the question and can connect with stakeholders’ perceptions. “I had to learn a lot about the business to understand what data means here. As a data engineer, you have to understand what you are moving and why, this is where you make the real difference. Most of my work is technical, that’s what you get hired for. The other part is consultancy: is this how you want it and are you sure and why? From engineering, you give advice on the consequences.”

Whatever choice I make,
here I can grow

“My technical knowledge has already advanced so much in the first year. In a year, I will be even stronger on the data part, so my business advice will also improve. For now, I am going to increase my self-confidence, after that I can grow in all directions. For instance, specialise in data architecture or just in guiding others. Whatever choice I make, I can grow here. With personal guidance from Blenddata, I will work on my goals for this year.”