Teleport

Introduction

What is Teleport?

Teleport is a device that you can connect to your energy assets. It connects to the Teleport cloud, allowing you to securely read them out and control them through the Teleport API.

Supported assets

We support energy assets that can be controlled over RS232, RS485, and Ethernet, through protocols like Modbus, OPC XML-DA, OPC UA, OCPP, SunSpec, and EN61850 (Real-time interfaceopen in new window). Think of PV inverters and loggers (e.g. Huawei, Sungrow, ABB), Power analyzers (e.g. Janitza), battery inverters (e.g. Victron), wind turbines (e.g. Enercon), charging stations, and heat pumps. If we don't have an integration with your specific asset yet, we can likely build the integration free of charge. See Connect to your asset for an overview of currently supported assets.

Installation

Once you receive the Teleport you connect it to your asset, typically by using a serialopen in new window or ethernetopen in new window cable. Some assets then require configuration, for example configuring the IP address and subnet mask for Modbus TCP. The Teleport often uses the cellular network to connect to the Teleport cloud, but it also supports Wi-Fi or ethernet. We make sure that the Teleport device is configured properly for your use case and that its firmware is kept up to date. For more details, see the Installation guide.

Read out

The Teleport will read out data from your asset and send that to our cloud. We forward them to a destination in your own cloud. For example, we push them to your database (eg. MySQL, Postgres, or Influx), message broker (eg. Kafka), or HTTPS endpoint. See the Data forwarding guide for more information. After successful delivery, our cloud will forget the messages within 2 weeks.

Control

You can use the Teleport API to control your assets.

Control strategies

Teleport unlocks additional alternative solutions where it acts as a gateway for different types of energy assets such as batteries and the corresponding battery management systems (BMS), power analyzers and meters, and solar and battery inverters. Such solutions include but are not limited to Grid power control, Conformance to dynamic grid limits, and Frequency containment reserve (FCR) where aggregation of data from a group of assets is required from third-party aggregators or an interaction between these assets is needed to provide local control.

Ordering

The ordering process for one or more Teleport devices consists of the following steps:

  1. Contact us at support@withthegrid.com with the assets you would like to unlock flexibility for or if you want to discuss your project.
  2. We will send you an Asset Onboarding Form with questions about the asset.
  3. We will contact you to set up the one-time Data Forwardingopen in new window integration with your database.
  4. We prepare and send you the configured Teleport to the designated address
  5. We agree to a date and timeslot that your installation partner will install the Teleport
  6. We will provide remote support to get your Teleport live.
  7. You are ready to unlock more flexibility.

Monitoring SLA

We monitor the Teleports for you. We take care of:

  • Device management
  • Firmware management
  • Cybersecurity/patch management
  • Websocket management
  • API management

A standard and extended service level agreement is available. Contact us support@withthegrid.com to know more.

Error Handling

In case something unexpected happens to the Teleport service we will inform you as soon as possible. Our error handling checks the following:

  • Asset availability
  • Connectivity
  • Cloudopen in new window
  • Grid network outages (Netherlands only)
  • Asset anomalies (under development)

Assurances against lock-in

Typically we manage the Teleport device and Teleport cloud for you. We keep the device firmware up to date, monitor the stability of the cloud services, and develop new features. We do understand that you don't want a vendor lock-in, which is why we can offer assurances like:

  • providing the source code of (and license for) the Teleport firmware
  • providing the source code of a cloud receiver that communicates with the Teleport device, to host in your own cloud environment

Cybersecurity

The Withthegrid Teleport takes the highest priority in addressing cybersecurity. We're doing the following:

  • We're ISO27001 certified meaning that our processes are in line with information security
  • Data is encrypted in transit through HTTPS
  • Our cloud services run on top of AWS infrastructure, in the EU only
  • Each Teleport device authenticates itself with a unique certificate
  • Teleport devices do not accept inbound connections
  • We're following industry practices determined by ENCS (European Network for Cybersecurity)

If you'd like to understand these measures and impact feel free to reach out to us.

Questions

In case of any questions or remarks, please contact us at support@withthegrid.com.