Plant Miner
A Plant Miner (formerly known as Standard Miner) is a collection of energy data from a physical green energy generation facility. The energy facility is connected to an IoT device that collects energy generation data. A Plant Miner gets AKRE rewards on the basis of how much energy it generates against the sum of energy that all Plant Miners generate.
In the early stage, Arkreen Network collected a number of solar photovoltaic plants from partners to feed their data to Remote Miners. When more and more community members who have solar panels come together co-building the network, Arkreen initiates the Community Solar Program to fully harness the power of the community.
See How does Plant Miner get rewards to understand the reward calculation.
A Plant Miner owner can issue AREC/ART against the energy amount the Standard Miner generates, for voluntary carbon emission offsetting activities, e.g., GreenBTC.
Solar PV System
Data Collection Methods
There are four data collection methods to acquire the energy generation data from the energy facility (e.g. solar PV panel). The choice of which to use depends on the inverter type.
Smart Meter
The first data collection method is Smart Meter (Current Transformer meter or CT meter) meter. The Smart Meter calculates the energy by measuring the voltage and current at the inverter output. It directly measures on the power line and thus, the Smart Meter miner is compatible with any electricity system. See Smart Meter Hardware Installation Guide for more information.
Smart Meter
Caution: For those doing the installation, advanced knowledge of how to connect meter lines (connections) including how to clamp on power lines is important, to avoid electric shock.
Smart Dongle
The second method is Smart Dongle. Smart Dongle is a data logger that can be connected to the inverter to acquire the energy generation data from the inverter. No physical connection to power lines is needed. All that’s required is a simple connection to the communications port. Because inverter models are not universally standardized, therefore, every Smart Dongle will need to be customized for compatibility with each specific inverter model from a customer’s Solar PV panel system.
Smart Dongle
Smart Plug
The third method is Smart Plug. Smart Plug is only compatible with the single-phase inverters whose AC output completely goes through a socket and the maximal output current is less than 10A. It's offen the case if the inverter is off-grid. If there is no other branch from the AC output, the smart plug can be plugged in to the AC output socket and monitors how much energy the inverter outputs.
NOTE: The smart plug hardware can also be used for energy consumption data collection. See also Consumption Plug Miner.
Smart Plug
API Acquisition
The fourth method is API (Application Programming Interface) Acquisition, getting data from 3rd-party platforms. Some existing energy facilities are already connected to the energy platforms for management purposes. Qualified 3rd-party platforms could provide data of the energy facilities to Arkreen Network.
API Acquisition
Background: The Plant Miner is the renaming of the former Standard Miner. For historic reasons, formerly Plant Miner denoted another miner type that fed energy data to Remote Miners and earned AKRE on the basis of how much the Remote Miners fed by this plant earned. The former Plant Miner had some obvious defects, e.g., if the Remote Miners it fed expired, it cannot earn any AKRE. Hence, the former Plant Miner type is now obsoleted. All former Plant Miners have been converted to Standard Miners (and renamed to Plant Miners to keep user conventions).
Read More:
Data Collector Installation Guide
How does Plant Miner get rewards