The Kalyon Solar Power Plant SCADA Center, known as “Oasis” due to its appearance, monitors real-time data on electricity generation from over 3.5 million solar panels.
Kalyon Solar Power Plant SCADA Center “Oasis” manages 3.5 million panels The building, equipped with various technical infrastructures and digital tools for the operation of the plant located in Karapınar district of Konya, attracts attention with its futuristic design.
Inspired by four different solar panel designs, the outer covering materials of the building prevent overheating of the interior while displaying an aesthetic and modern appearance.
The interior courtyard of the SCADA Center, designed considering the vegetation of the city, offers an atmosphere where renewable energy and nature are in harmony.
Operating as the brain of the solar plant and named “Oasis” due to its appearance, the SCADA Center monitors and analyzes real-time electricity generation data of over 3.5 million solar panels in the plant.
The SCADA Center contributes to increasing interest in solar energy in line with the goal of meeting Turkey’s electricity demand from clean and sustainable sources.
The Solar Power Plant Represents the Whole of Turkey Gürler Duman, Deputy General Manager of Operations at Kalyon Energy Investments, stated that energy plants, refineries, petrochemical facilities, and similar large facilities are managed by private and central control rooms due to their strategic importance, saying, “Although solar energy plants are not very sophisticated in terms of operation, we, as Kalyon management, have always believed that it deserves a central control building due to both its strategic significance and its magnitude.”
Duman emphasized that the SCADA Center was designed as a magnificent, sustainable, and technological building, saying that they took into account the necessity of managing a 1350-megawatt installed capacity plant from a central control building.
Duman commented, “This facility is one of the 5 major facilities in the world. The plant represents not only Kalyon but the whole of Turkey. This will be a symbolic plant for Turkey in the sector. The SCADA Center had to be an iconic structure representing this strategic importance.”
Environmental, Technological, and Aesthetic Concerns Considered in the Design of the Center Indicating that the center will also operate as a technology campus, Duman said, “We wanted it to be a place where solar energy systems can be seen and experienced. We especially wanted to contribute to the sector and students studying in this field in this way. Therefore, when designing the structure, we considered both aesthetic concerns, environmental concerns, and such technological and functional concerns.”
Duman said that the center, designed by the Caner-Begüm Bilgin couple, was selected from among 65 projects, and construction was completed in 2023.
“Oasis” Meets Its Own Electricity Needs Duman stated that the center was designed on a “zero waste” principle and its energy was entirely supplied from the sun, saying:
“We provide the internal electricity consumption of the building from the solar panels we installed. We have a separate system consisting of 113 kilowatt peak, 400-watt panels. In this system, we try to supply not only the energy of the building but also the energy of other consumption points as much as the capacity allows.”
Duman, stating that the building designed as an “energy campus” consists of management, maintenance-repair, operation, and operation parts, said that they will also organize virtual tours of the plant with virtual reality.
Stating that they received numerous visit requests for the physical building, Duman said, “We have a lot of demand from schools, technical high schools, and universities for the building. There are central visit requests from all over the world, from Iran to the USA, from the Far East to Europe. We will prepare our system and start receiving visitor applications.”
Duman concluded by stating that 110 people work in the center and said, “We discharge 1000 megawatts of electricity to Turkey’s electricity system. Therefore, these systems have a 24-hour basis for management. In addition to that, we are talking about the maintenance-repair of a huge energy plant with 3,256,000 panels and about 31,000 motors operating. According to the latest data, we have made an investment of around 8 million dollars. The building was entirely built with our own resources.”
source: aa.com.tr/ prepared by Melisa Beğiç