Overview

This is an overview of my first co-op experience as a Monitoring & Analytics student at Canadian Solar Solutions Inc. from September 2018 to December 2018.

About the company

Canadian Solar Solutions Inc. is a global company based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada which engages in manufacturing solar photovoltaic (PV) modules and provides solar energy solutions worldwide. It offers solar cells, solar modules, solar power systems, off-grid home application system and other specialized solar products.

The office located in Guelph has a manufacturing facility where solar cells, solar PV modules, etc. are manufactured. I had the opportunity to have a tour around the facility and witness the production of solar panels.

The department where I was assigned during my co-op (Operations and Maintenance, O&M) consists of people from different backgrounds: control room operators, system performance analysts, developers, engineers, etc. working closely together to provide monitoring, diagnostics and troubleshooting of solar plants by using one of their software, namely CSEye.

To learn more about Canadian Solar Operations and Maintenance., click here: https://www.canadiansolar.com/en/energy-solutions/om-services.html

Goals

For my first work term, I set 4 goals whose main purposes were to help focusing what I would like to achieve at the end of my work term and also enable me to track my progress.

In order to achieve my goals, during the first few weeks of my co-op, I spent time going through 2-3 tutorials and built small projects to familiarize myself to Python and Django. I have also completed tutorials on w3schools to reinforce my existing knowledge on HTML, CSS and scripting language such as JavaScript and JQuery. While working on the tasks assigned, I usually discuss ideas with my mentors before implementing them and ask for feedbacks on my work so as to meet their requirements.

Job Description

My project at Canadian Solar Inc. was to develop an Operator Log page for auditing and NERC compliance purposes.

Control room operators monitor and troubleshoot events that are happening at different solar farm sites on a 24/7/365 basis.

Hence, the Operator Log is mostly used by operators to record and keep track of events and interactions happening at different solar farm sites. And since they work on shifts, one operator can easily reviewed what happened in the previous shift through the Operator Log. Even though operators are the only ones able to enter new log, other member in the O&M department can use the Operator Log for auditing.

The Operator Log consists of two parts:

1. New Log:
• Only operators can create new event for different sites
2. Log History:
• Users(Regular users and Operators) can view all the logs from the previous date to the current date
• All users can filter the logs based on operator’s name, site, date and log description. They are also able to sort each column by ascending or descending order.
• Operators have additional features such as editing a log, create a log thread which groups all the related logs together.

Web Technologies Used:

• For backend development: Python and Django framework
• For frontend development: HTML5/CSS3 together with Bootstrap framework to develop the design of the page. JavaScript and JQuery were used to make the webpage responsive and send/receive data from server

Below are two slideshows showing the Operator Log from a regular user's perspective and an operator's perspective.

Regular users' perspective(excl. Operators)

• This picture shows how the New Log page will be displayed for normal users except for operators.
• As for operators, there would be no error message box appearing and they will be allowed to submit a new log by providing a site and writing a description for the log.

Regular users have accessed to the Log Audit(A list of all the previous edited versions of a log) and the Log Thread(A list of all the logs in a thread)

Logs which have been edited at least once have icon in the last column, the Action column.

Logs which have a thread history have icon in the Action column

Otherwise, last column cell will be empty

• Log Audit
• Log Thread

• Upon selecting one of the icons, the Log Audit and Log Thread can be viewed in an appealing timeline format through a specialized view.
• Users can scroll through the timeline which contains by the latest log at the top.

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Operators' perspective

• Operators can edit logs, add new log to a thread and view the logs in a thread through the Log Thread
• Logs which are the latest log in a thread (see entry(1) in picture) or do not have a thread history yet (see entry(3)), contain the icon in the Action column
• All logs which are in a thread (see entries (1) and (2)), contain the icon.
• All logs are editable by double clicking on the Description cell.

• This image shows the modal box for editing a log on double clicking on a Description cell.
• Operators can choose a new site and edit the log description.

• This image shows the modal box for starting a thread or adding a log to an existing thread.

• Operators can view the Log Thread in the same timeline format through a specialized view.
• The additional feature allows the operators to easily add a log to the thread while browsing through the Log Thread.

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Conclusion

During these 4 months, I have been able to put into practice what I learned in class into a real work project, explore new technologies and gained valuable skills and experience which will be benificial for my next co-op terms and my future career.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Canadian Solar Solution Inc. for giving me the opportunity to enhance and develop new skills.

A big thank you to the O&M Team for having me during these 4 months.

Special thanks to my Supervisor, Didier Thevenard and two of my co-workers, Kuber Singh and Nirav Mehta for providing help and support whenever needed, during my work term.