William, I've used a lot of services from Fat Spaniel, SolarMagic, Draker, Noveda, AlsoEnergy, Locus, Qantum, Powerfactors, and Green Power Monitoring. Which one is the best is highly dependent upon your preferences and what services you require. I prefer AlsoEnergy for numerous reasons, one being customized graphs. I download irradiance, ambient temperature, and wind speed for ASTM tests and various time intervals. Also includes calibration certificates stored in the platform so it's easy to download. They're flexible on what pyranometers you need (Class A, B, or C from various vendors), and can monitor some other items like a SEL 651R. However, Also is getting onto the pricier end and their front end proposal group is a bit of a mess right now. Their online platform is very powerful but I can see it be overwhelming for someone not familiar with it.
I've seen a lot of companies move towards Green Power Monitoring and Qantum. GPM is very inexpensive and basic and easy to use. Their online platform is nowhere near as powerful as some of the others though, but if you want no frills monitoring, you can look here. Qantum is a lot more flexible in terms of equipment then GPM and their online platform is more powerful than GPM, but Qantum's platform is very, very slow and kind of clunky. I don't have pricing handy so i can't comment on Qantum's pricing. You can still get Locus, but since Locus is owned by AlsoEnergy, I recommend you just go with Also. All of them will give you pre-wired boxes so you just have to mount and hook up. > Friends: > > > > We are starting to work on larger grid-tied systems (500kW) and I am trying > to school myself on some of the aspects. Monitoring is the subject at > hand. > > > > One such system uses AlsoEnergy hardware on the PowerTrack online > platform. There is also a VistaWatt service that is involved that looks > like it is simply an analytics service. > > > > Have I correctly categorized the above entities? Does anyone have > experience with any of the above that might offer some insight as to the > pros and cons of these services? Anyone have any documentation on the > hardware? > > > > Thanks in advance! > > > > William Miller > > > > Miller Solar > > 17395 Oak Road, Atascadero, CA 93422 > > 805-438-5600 > > www.millersolar.com > > CA Lic. 773985 > >
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