In a co-operation project between Open Source Ecology Germany e.V. (OSEG) and the EnAccess Foundation, the LibreSolar Battery Management System (BMS C1) was successfully confirmed as Open Source Hardware in accordance with DIN SPEC 3105.
What is the LibreSolar BMS
The BMS C1 is a battery management system as a flexible technical solution for individual solar systems. C1 stands for the first variant in the compact/decentralised (compact) series. The open source hardware module is part of the LibreSolar project, which aims to make renewable energy systems accessible. In addition to various hardware solutions, the project also includes a range of educational programmes. The development of the project was supported by the EnAccess Foundation(EnAccess project presentation).
EnAccess Foundation
EnAccess provides funding, technical support, project certification and maintains a library of high-quality open source tools.
Service providers and manufacturers operating in off-grid or rural areas usually have more specific requirements for their technology and infrastructure. The EnAccess library contains only software, hardware and other open source information that is helpful and useful for the energy access sector.
The review
The certification is carried out according to the criteria defined in DIN SPEC 3105. The standardisation project assesses the quality of documentation to ensure that the open source technology can be examined, reproduced, further developed and disseminated. The world’s first standard for open source hardware is also DIN’s first open standard(Gitlab source). DIN SPEC 3105-1 defines the criteria for open source hardware and DIN SPEC 3105-2 defines the community-based attestation process. The organisation that acts as the assessment body for the review is called the Conformity Assessment Body (CAB). In principle, any organisation that tests according to the process described is free to do so. The whole process is accompanied by the Technology Specific Documentation Criteria (TsDC), which defines separate test criteria for each technology(e.g. Open Hardware TsDC).
What was special about this attestation process was the collaboration of two organisations as a CAB. While OSEG has already led several projects through the attestation process, the EnAccess Foundation is currently in the process of setting up its own certification programme. The infrastructure and existing knowledge of the process were therefore provided by OSEG for the review of the BMS. EnAccess took over the coordination and implementation of the review on this basis and with the support of OSEG.
Parallel to the DIN SPEC review, the project also underwent certification in accordance with OSHWA (Open Source Hardware Association), which meant that the basic requirements for open source documentation (open licence, source files available) had already been successfully verified.
As part of the assessment in accordance with DIN SPEC 3105, a theoretical review was carried out to check that the documentation fulfils all criteria. The two reviewers came to the conclusion that the information provided is also very helpful for replication, practical application and further development. The documentation is exemplary in this respect. There were a few minor comments from a best-practice perspective for improvement, but these did not stand in the way of the final certification.
Outlook
In order to ensure further quality assurance and support for good open source documentation, we have now been able to explore the possibilities of a new energy sector-specific Conformity Assessment Body in this joint pilot project and communicate and improve our own methods and processes.
We took this opportunity to scrutinise our existing best practice for open source documentation and will identify further collaborations in the next step. The suggestions for improvement and topic-specific innovations will be incorporated into the TsDCs and general feedback into DIN SPEC 3105.
The cooperation has shown that it is not only possible to create synergies for open source hardware projects and individual organisations in a practical way, but also to improve standards. We will continue to pursue this path and hope to work together with the EnAccess Foundation in the future. Next, together with partners from the network, we will concentrate on ensuring that these new findings and accompanying support are applied more widely.
The next review is already being planned. The Helmholtz innovation platform SOOP (shaping an ocean of possibilities) recently published the open source documentation(Gitlab source) for the Open Source Building Kit(OSBK). The OSBK, a so-called data logger, is intended to help simplify the collection of ocean data and thus contribute to knowledge about our oceans and climate. We will be publishing a separate article on this shortly.
