Remote monitoring of generation meter and SolarEdge inverter

[methley]

I have a SolarEdge install on a rental property. Currently my tenants are happy to give me a generation meter reading every quarter and have also connected the inverter to their broadband modem so I can monitor the system. One day (hopefully not too soon!) these tenants will move on. When that happens I'd like to upgrade the system so that I can remotely read the generation meter and also monitor the inverter.

I'm thinking of a using GPRS/3G wifi puk for internet connectivity with a wifi bridge connected to the ethernet port of the inverter. One thing I'm not clear on is whether there any approved generation meters out there with wifi connectivity?

 

[SibertSolar]

Is this for FiT meter reading purposes? Or simply just to provide online remote monitoring?

 

[methley]

For both...

 

[SibertSolar]

Ok, well if you want to submit kWh generation meter readings for FiT purposes then you shouldn't really be using the optical or pulsed outputs to gather the data (ridiculous in my opinion but I'm pretty sure that's the deal, although I'm not sure that anyone would know that you didn't actually do a physical read....) but you could run a datalogger from the pulsed output (if it has one) - up to you. You might also want to consider fitting a Smart kWh generation meter with built-in GSM modem and SIM card. This will have an annual data charge associated with it depending on how frequently you want the data to be uploaded to the online portal. Only problem there is that I think that may impact on the original FiT application as the serial number of the kWh meter associated with the system will have to be changed.

Remote monitoring just for post-install service, or client desire, can be achieved in numerous ways. 3rd party solutions that utilise either the GSM/GPRS network or WiFi are available, all with some form of online portal to log-in to. Most of these will be driven from the pulsed (S0) or optical LED output of the kWh generation meter only (so they measure generation only), although something like the Elios4You measures generation/import/export and calculates local consumption and can be hooked up to a WLAN to send data to the online portal.

 

[Eco Deal]

heres a simple solution , connect the inverter to a router , get your installer to register your system on the solar edge portal then you can track its performance. but every quarter get a meter read from tenant! simples

 

[methley]

Did you actually read any of the above?