Grid-tie system monitor, web interface [RE-wrenches]

[Gary Higbee, Solutions from the Land]

Doug and Wrenches,

Doug, you mentioned talking about system monitors with Ethan Brand. I've
spoken with him, too, and agree that the new Brand meter sounds very
promising. After talking with Ethan my understanding is that the Brand
multi-channel monitor will collect a number of channels of data from a
variety of transducers (channels and transducers are added to the base
system), and logs the data. This data can also be written to a textfile on a
PC. The monitor comes with one LCD display and others can be added. Anyone
interested in the Brand monitor can visit
http://www.brandelectronics.com/powermeter.htm.

I'm looking for a grid-tie monitor, as well, for an ST/2.4Kw array install
at a local high school. The challenge is that it must be able to upload
real-time data to a web page. The Brand monitor sounds like a good choice to
collect the data and log it to a PC textfile, but unfortunately no one (that
I know of) has written an interface to get this textfile uploaded to a web
page. Well, Schott has a "system," but it is very high-end, and the price is
very high for the rest of us.

It sounds like I may need to hire a local programmer to write a web
interface for the Brand-generated file. I think this sort of application is
going to be of interest to more folks, though, and I'd like to see such an
interface available to others. If any of you know of such a thing I'd love
to hear about it. Otherwise for those of you who drop me an offline response
I'll let you know what I come up with. I'll be talking with Ethan about
this, too. Speaking of which I was very pleased with the response Ethan gave
to my request for information. It is so refreshing to be able to talk
directly with someone who really knows what's going on!

For the high school system I'm also considering the new Davis Instruments
Vantage Pro Plus weather station, which measures solar insolation (in
watts/meter squared), as well as UV index, windspeed, and a lot of weather
information. This new system will have an optional logger and software to
upload the data to a PC and a web page, including the addition of other data
(as a GIF image, I think). It sounds like this might be a place to stick the
text-to-GIF translated monitor information. Anyone interested in the Davis
instruments systems might want to check out
http://www.davisnet.com/weather/index.asp.

Any comments, suggestions, insights, or requests are appreciated!

Gary


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Gary Higbee  (ghigbee at efn.org)
          (541)607-1818 (Eugene)
         (541)902-8544 (Florence)
   Solar, wind, and hydro site analysis,
    design, and installation assistance
         ~Solutions from the Land~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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