Fat Spaniel Technologies has come up with a system to monitor a solar cell’s efficiency in real time by tracking how much electricity is actually generated by each cell as well as how much electricity is being consumed. All this data get’s fed into a central server where it can be viewed from any web enabled system.
The benefit of this technology are:
1. Better measurement of electricity generation and usage will mean that we can position solar cells more effectively to maximize energy generation.
2. Consumption metering could mean that Utility companies could install a network of solar collecting panels on existing houses
and patch it on to the grid. Electricity generated from the panels could be knocked off from the monthly bill of the home owners. This could propagate further the use of this type of renewable energy as the sometimes prohibitive cost of setup is passed on to the utility company and not shouldered by the homeowner.
I just hope that the system is secure enough to prevent other people from snooping into other people’s electricity consumption. Unscrupulous people can monitor a units energy consumption and can actually determine if people are home or not if they can gain access to the system. But then again that’s just me thinking out loud… security audit anyone? 
Original Article here
Category: Solar
