When the Weather Outside Is Frightful, Solential’s Remote Solar Monitoring System Is Delightful

I wish I could say that Midwest winters are enjoyable. You know what I mean: balmy temps, perfect sunshine and just enough rain to keep things green. Sadly, this is not Florida, nor is it the Bahamas or Hawaii for that matter. Midwest winters are cold, wet, icy, gray, and downright miserable.

Perfect for staying inside, right? Not so great when you have to go out and check on facilities such as wastewater treatment plants, schools, municipal buildings, and farm structures, particularly those related to livestock. Most Midwesterners are very familiar with the layering drill.

As solar energy has become the power of choice for commercial entities of all kinds, the demand for system maintenance has also increased. Things like inverters, panels, panel boxes, racking, and wiring need to be monitored to ensure solar systems are operating at peak levels and to address any issues. Solar system management and maintenance is not a bad gig when the weather’s nice, but in the dead of winter? You’ll be wishing you had a desk job.

Solential Energy has the solution for bad weather woes: a cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) asset management system that enables 24-7 remote monitoring of solar systems. Instead of bundling up, trudging out to one’s solar system, users with a smart phone, tablet, or laptop can login into the company’s Solview portal from virtually anywhere in the world—think inside where it’s warm and dry—and check the performance of an entire solar system right down to individual inverters. It’s like being onsite, but you’re not, which is a real lifesaver on bad weather days. Here are some of the real-time visibility insights provided by the Solview app:

Overall energy generation
Individual panel output
System or panel overheating
System or panel running under accepted levels
Environmental conditions
Fault isolation tool to pinpoint issues before they happen
Energy generation and consumption reports by days, weeks and months

Solview’s real-time, proactive monitoring continues around-the-clock. Should there be an issue, say one of the panels is running under its typical level, the system issues an alert to the Solential team and to the solar system owner via email that isolates the fault so action can be taken. The report is so detailed, we know exactly what tools and parts our technician needs to set things right, minimizing downtime.

Solential’s Solview remote monitoring system for commercial solar installations is unique in the industry; no other solar company has a remote asset management system quite like Solview. It’s such a benefit to customers, that we include the Solview app with all Solential designed and built solar systems and also make it available to utility scale and smaller commercial systems through licensing agreements.

There are other situations that make Solview a must-have app for commercial solar system owners as 2020 underscored. Things like:

Global pandemics and social distancing
Working from home
Traveling for business
On vacation
Unable to access the physical site due to other issue

My colleague, Solential’s chief technology officer and co-founder Dave Burns, originally developed the Solview application in 2012. It was originally intended for internal use only to verify performance of our solar projects across the United States. Because of the value delivered to customers, we expanded the functionality to allow customer access and provide customizable multi-level user interface and reporting via browser or App. The remote monitoring and asset management system is integral to Solential’s preventive maintenance program and now a huge customer benefit as well.

Here’s an unintended benefit: our school customers use Solview and its insights as part of their STEM curriculum to teach students about solar energy and solar system generation. Some businesses share their Solview dashboard with employees to show them the positive impact of their solar system.

Solview is a major differentiator between Solential and other solar companies. No matter what the weather is doing, we know exactly how every solar system with our name on it is performing 24/7 and so do our customers!

Would you like to see a demonstration of Solview, Solential’s real-time solar management system? I am happy to set up a video conference and walk you through it. If you’re considering solar power for your business, municipal building, school, wastewater plant, prison, or farm, you need Solview. Shoot me an email at cmiller@solential.com or text or call me at 317-627-4530.