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Success Factors
Specialized Engineering Expertise
Contrivian’s team of former internet infrastructure engineers applied deep networking knowledge to determine the root cause of a problem that other vendors and large consulting firms had spent over a year attempting to solve.
Technical Creativity
After addressing the root cause of the problem, IP changes during failover, Contrivian designed a persistent IP SpeedFusion configuration that solved the issue outright.
Peplink Technology
Peplink’s SpeedFusion technology provides seamless failover between Starlink and LTE while maintaining a static IP at the nearby datacenter, allowing the power producer to meet the ISO’s stringent uptime and security requirements.
Power Producers Require Constant Connectivity
Independent System Operators (ISOs) manage electricity distribution across much of the United States, ensuring supply meets demand in real time. To do this, they require a continuous stream of heavily encrypted telemetry data from power producers. Even short lapses in data can force a facility offline.
Remote solar farms often struggle to meet these requirements. Fiber lines are rarely available, T1 copper connections are not sufficiently reliable, and cellular connectivity can be inconsistent. Starlink satellite service has emerged as a practical option, but brief outages still occur, making backup connections essential.
The Challenge: Brief Outages Trigger Costly Shutdowns
One large solar farm in a remote desert area faced repeated outages and struggled to maintain a constant data link with the ISO. The facility used Starlink as its primary link, with LTE service as backup. The failover system was configured to quickly switch from Starlink to LTE. However, after changing over to LTE, the VPN connection to the ISO could not be re-established for another 5 to 7 minutes.
The ISO has a strict rule requiring facilities to restore their data link within 1 minute of disconnecting or face an automatic 24-hour shutdown. Because the site could not reconnect in time, even brief Starlink outages resulted in full-day shutdowns. Each shutdown cost the facility roughly $1 million in lost revenue.
For nearly a year, multiple vendors attempted to resolve this issue without success.
The Solution: Contrivian Finds the Root Cause and Fixes Failover
Contrivian determined that the underlying problem was not the speed of the LTE failover itself, but the change in public IP address during the switch. Each time Starlink went down, the LTE backup came online quickly, but the new connection to the ISO’s VPN was rejected because the new IP address was unrecognized. This resulted in a 5- to 7-minute wait before the connection could be reestablished.
To eliminate this delay, Contrivian implemented a Peplink SpeedFusion configuration with two tunnels, one over Starlink and one over LTE, both terminating at a nearby data center. A fixed IP address was maintained at the data center, so failover did not break the VPN connection. Failover detection was set at 15 seconds, and the system is capable of switching over in as little as 1.5 seconds.
With this persistent IP setup, brief Starlink outages no longer caused extended downtime or costly shutdowns.
What's Next: Broader Adoption Across the Grid
The ISO has expressed interest in broader adoption of this solution across its energy producers. For existing sites, the benefit is clear: avoiding costly 24-hour shutdowns caused by brief outages.
The approach also holds significant value for new facilities during the commissioning process. Before going live, each must pass a 72-hour flawless connectivity test overseen by the ISO. The test period must be completely free of outages. In practice, a single short outage can delay commissioning significantly, since rescheduling a new test date often takes several weeks. More reliable connectivity means faster commissioning and the ability to start producing revenue without delay.
Conclusion: A Solution for New and Existing Power Producers
Contrivian resolved a persistent failover problem that had been forcing automatic 24-hour shutdowns. By keeping a fixed public IP during failover, the VPN connection stayed up through brief Starlink interruptions, telemetry to the ISO continued, and shutdowns stopped. The immediate result at this site was the avoidance of about $1 million in losses per outage, along with stable, reliable day-to-day operations.
This same approach also supports new power producers during commissioning. Contrivian’s solution can reduce the risk of 72-hour test restarts and help sites begin generating revenue without delay.
