Thomas and wrenches:
Thanks for your replies. This system has an Elkor WattsOn <https://www.elkor.net/product/WattsOn> digitizer feeding an Alsoenergy PowerLogger 1000 <https://home.alsoenergy.com/de/collateral/alsoenergy-powerlogger-1000/alsoenergy_powerlogger_hardware_datasheet_v19.2.pdf> encoder. There is an irradiation and module temperature sensors connected to an Adam 4019 <https://www.advantech.com/products/gf-5vtd/adam-4019/mod_8f5dfaa0-c563-4d4a-a23b-0703746be68b> data acquisition module someone disconnected and an ambient temperature sensor. The data from the AlsoEnergy feeds the PowerTrack web portal. PowerTrack <https://home.alsoenergy.com/solutions#commercial-industrial> is a pretty useful online interface, but the service may be overpriced considering you can get much of the same plus net metering from a properly installed and configured E-Gauge system without the monthly charges. It looks like the data from AlsoEnergy and the utility bill port into a service called VistaWatt that repackages this readily available data and regurgitates it in a slick format. This service is over $2,000 per year. >From what I can see, the Elkor data in the system we are working on at some point became exactly 50% if what it is supposed to be. There might have been a failure of a CT or something else. No one notified us of the failure. None of this reporting does any good unless someone is looking at it. I see the PowerTrack has alarms you can set up but I am not sure how to set up an alarm that says, “your production is low!” for a given period. Insolation varies, so unless you can tie electrical production to solar irradiation, this quality control check needs to be a manual task. To make sure we don’t miss any problems that crop up, I am going to suggest we train the facilities manager to open a production graph in the chosen online interface once per week and give it a quick visual inspection showing trends are consistent. I am thinking one could avoid the recurring fees with a home-brew approach and get comparable results. This would consist of an E-Gauge for solar production and a Control by Web <https://www.controlbyweb.com/x401/> data acquisition system to monitor meteorological data. We are already using Control by Web to drive the tracker so that is an easy transition. Couple the above with a weekly quick inspection of solar production and a quarterly review of the entire system, I think we can assure our client that they are getting the most out of their investment. Am I covering all of the necessities here? Thanks again, William Miller Miller Solar 17395 Oak Road, Atascadero, CA 93422 805-438-5600 www.millersolar.com CA Lic. 773985 *From:* RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] *On Behalf Of *Thomas Hall *Sent:* Saturday, April 10, 2021 10:59 PM *To:* RE-wrenches *Subject:* Re: [RE-wrenches] Monitoring large PV systems AlsoEnergy bought a company called Locus Energy, Locus NOC, and bought a company called Deck Monitoring. All good platforms. I have worked with both of those and they work well for commercial revenue grade monitoring and weather reporting equipment integration. Also Energy also bought Draker Labs. What device are you going to work with, or planning to work with William ? I have info on LGate products. Thomas Hall Solar Specialty Group Www.solarspecialtygroup.com thomash...@solarspecialtygroup.com 808-854-9539 NABCEP PV Installation Professional On Apr 10, 2021, at 7:02 PM, Jerry Shafer <jerrysgarag...@gmail.com> wrote: Wrenches Yes, fat spaniel was an early adaptor with lots of hardware Jerry On Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 7:42 PM Mark Frye <ma...@berkeleysolar.com> wrote: I do remember Fat Spaniel. I remember the day they came to our office to show us their product. It was an enclosure full of power strips, wall warts and wires going everywhere. Origins. On 4/10/2021 2:52 PM, Jerry Shafer wrote: Wrenches I have used many of the monitoring platforms, many of which are either out or bought out and consolidated. Anybody remember "Fat Spaniel" they were one of the first. We had sites with full motion cameras to string level monitoring. Now if its up to me I go simple with eguage, they have whats needed and have a better chance of being around in a few years. Jerry NABCEP PV inspector On Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:38 PM William Miller <will...@millersolar.com> wrote: 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 _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org There are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other: https://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/ http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: http://www.members.re-wrenches.org _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org There are two list archives for searching. 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