March 4, 2019 | Engineering + Technology
Data services…they are probably not the first thing that come to mind when you think of NRG Systems. Since our founding over 36 years ago, we have always been known as an equipment company, mainly providing tools like anemometers and data loggers for wind resource assessment. When I started at NRG Systems nearly a decade ago, the boundaries were clear – we make the gear and the resulting data go straight to our customers. Measurement data was simply the product of our products and that’s where our relationship with data ended.
In the years that followed, I have witnessed – and have been fortunate to participate in – an evolution in the renewable energy industry as well as in the mindset here at NRG. The industry has grown from one fighting to establish a presence with a dream of a better future, to a demonstrated success and the obvious way forward for a planet that is truly feeling the effects of climate change. Through that maturation process, I’ve witnessed an increasing willingness among industry stakeholders to share data along with a realization and, more recently even conviction, that our collective ability to thrive depends on more of that type of collaboration.
At the same time, we here at NRG have grown increasingly aware of and continue to accumulate our own domain expertise in wind and solar assessment – a unique sort of domain expertise borne from intimate knowledge of and experience with designing and manufacturing the tools of the trade. Our offerings have also expanded, reaching beyond resource assessment to include products for post-construction needs like wind plant optimization, solar monitoring, and bat deterrence at wind turbines.
These internal and external developments have dovetailed, leading to more and more requests from our customers for NRG to get involved beyond the devices and expand our solutions to include data services. Today we are offering a collection of micro-services, all of which have been in response to customer demand – things like email service for data loggers, continuous automated conversion of measurement data, an open source Python package called nrgpy to aid in DIY data processing, continuous monitoring of measurement campaigns, ad hoc data analysis, and more. We have grown a staff of talented software engineers and data scientists and our company culture is embracing the trend well beyond our engineering team as folks from a range of departments get together regularly over lunch to share the latest Python projects.
It’s safe to say that things are changing here at NRG Systems. We make some of the world’s best equipment for measuring renewable resources and we are determined to keep it that way. However, we are also working hard to bring the same smart design and purpose-built approach to software and services to further enable our customers’ success. The boundaries we once felt to define ourselves as an equipment provider seem firmly in the past and we are offering an open invitation to all kinds of new challenges. We look forward to seeing where the data take us.
If you are interested in learning more about any of the services mentioned above, or if you have an idea of how we can help you do your job better, please reach out to our services team via support@nrgsystems.com.