Distributed generation platform, one site to 50 MW
A multi-tenant platform for distributed generation across some of the UK's largest manufacturers, built to onboard a new site or a new generation technology without major development, and to get cheaper per site as it grew.
- Sector
- Distributed energy · on-site generation
- Our role
- Architect and platform owner
Architecture
Plant
Edge
Ingest
Process and store
Use
- Azure IoT Hub
- IoT Edge
- Stream Analytics
- Azure Data Explorer
- Azure Digital Twins
- SignalR
The situation
Generation assets sit behind the meter at large industrial sites, and each site is a little different: a different engine, a different set of meters, a different relationship with the grid. A platform serving them has to absorb that variety without a fresh build every time, because the whole point is a growing portfolio.
The stack
Plant data lands through Azure IoT Hub. Edge modules run at each site, balancing generation against local demand, the margin on exporting to the grid, and grid events as they happen, so the decision is made where the plant is rather than in a round trip to the cloud. Stream Analytics processes the flow, Azure Digital Twins holds the model of each site and its assets, and Azure Data Explorer stores the time series telemetry. SignalR pushes it to dashboards live.
Cost as a design constraint
The commercial model carried no capital cost to the site, which put the cloud bill on the platform. That made cost per site a first class design constraint rather than an afterthought: it had to fall as the portfolio grew, or the model did not work. I owned that, and the platform scaled from a single CHP site to over 50 MW of live generation with cost per site trending down.
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