Last week, Indji Systems, a Los Angeles-based software and online services company added its new hail detection technology to its Indji Watch platform. The latest addition to its platform comes at a time when insurers are requiring these sites to demonstrate mitigation strategies and protocols to prevent significant damage to its assets and solar panels.
The cloud based software that was announced in 2008 aims to equip solar industry players with capabilities to anticipate hail events and implement effective defensive measures for its sites.
“A single large hail storm that rolls through can cause millions of dollars of damage to those solar panels if they don't take some precautions,” Vice President of the Americas Chuck Parker said. “So what we've been able to do is utilizing our core patent and technologies partner data and we've been able to alert customers both on a day ahead basis as well as within the next 12, 14 hours.”
The warning allows solar farms time to stow, which is a term used that means angling the solar panels away from oncoming hailstorms.
Since the company’s founding, Indji has continued to serve the utility and renewable energy sectors. Some of Indji’s current utility customers include Sacramento Municipal Utility District, San Diego Gas and Electric, Xcel Energy and Southern California Edison.
“What makes us unique is we're modeling the entire customer asset,” Parker said. “All of the wind turbines on a farm are laid out, all the solar panels and other assets that the customers have at a solar facility are laid out. So we're actually monitoring their entire footprint of their property and alerting them to any threats that are going to be impacting that property.”
As far as the renewable energy sector, this area is focused on wind farms and major solar farm operators. Parker said these sites will use Indji’s platform to look for potential hazards for the safety of each site’s employees. Currently, Indji Watch monitors 170 solar farms and over 500 wind farms.
“They'll [solar farm operators] be looking at the use of the energy and watching their planning capabilities and they can understand if they're going to have a significant reduction in the production of their energy,” Parker said. “They'll also be utilizing us [Indji Watch] to see if there's going to be interruption in their work schedules.”
The company’s patented system creates models for different weather based hazards including lightning, flooding wildfires and extreme winds. Each customer using Indji’s software will have access to a dashboard that shows an aerial footprint of their solar or wind farm which can help operators quickly identify any changes in weather that can impact a facility.
Alerts are generated specific to where each site is located and automatic text alerts are sent to every individual affected. Operators can be notified via desktop, tablet or smartphone.
Indji Watch is an annual subscription service and while Parker was unable to disclose the cost, he said that their product is economical compared to their competitors. There are no additional costs if a site wants to add more users access to the platform.
Indji Systems VP of Americas Chuck Parker Courtesy of Indji Systems
“One of the things that our customers like the most is that it's an enterprise wide license for them,” Parker told dot.LA. “So they can actually have as many users access our system as they need when they're having severe storm events or major natural disasters that could be impacting their operations.”
While their current services are primarily concentrated in North America, Parker said that they also have customers based in Europe, Central and South America and a few sites in Asia and Africa. To date, Indji has amassed over 8,000 users on its platform and over 3 million alert notifications have been sent out in 2022.
“With our narrow focus for our customers,” Parker said, “we're able to constantly work with them on understanding what the challenges they have that are impacting their operations. So we can go ahead and reinvest and modify our product to meet their latest needs. We can move much quicker in the industry than most companies and we typically reinvest 30% of our annual revenue back into research and development.”
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