A bit of history:
I have been focused on engineering development since Wattminder won 3 SBIR grants in President Obama's ARRA 'Stimulus package, since Fall of 2009. With close to $1M in gross funding, although
the bulk of it went to our collaborators at CMU-West, we were able to revamp our PV Benchmark calculator at www.pvmonitor.net--our first generation analytics on solar power sites.


Our 2nd generation performance analytics for solar array has been in open beta since March this year.
We are still adding final touches and are making a campaign to bring awareness to the problem of under performance in solar arrays everywhere. By inviting the public to try our tools and applying them to the hundreds of web-monitored solar sites and there by discover under-performing sites.  We'll reward anyone who will register as a user, learn our tools, create registered site, and submit the ones that are apparently underperforming(verifyed by our technical staff) by at least 25%; with $50 in prize.


Please try it out for yourself, tell your friends, learn more about solar power generation, win some prize!
Go to PVwizard.com

Second generation Analytics for solar power sites, pvwizard.com is here

Second generation Analytics for solar power sites, pvwizard.com is here

Posted At : November 17, 2011 8:06 PM | Posted By : Steve C Yang, P.E.

On-demand analytics service platform for solar power sites anywhere in the world, powered

by Wattminder.

It is in all-free beta trial for a month, in which we hope to gather input
from users like yourselves so that we can modify and improve on it.
The basic benchmark service has been revamped with refinements like aging
consideration, tracking, irridiance correction for air-mass; will always be free.

While more advanced services added like Performance Check and Degradation
Assessment will become fee services after the beta trial.

Please visit www.pvwizard.com , and give it honest and brutal critique.
We won't be offended by your comment. For a brief introduction, see--
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BxuyQoc-vUJ-MzRlNmM5ZjYtNjQ2My00YjlkLWIzOTgtOTk5YmZhOWYxZGRj&hl=en_US
Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you.
May the Sun always warm your face and your panels!

A report card on the Googleplex solar panels ?

As a solar (photovoltaic) enthusiast, and a neighbor of the

Googleplex, I check up on the solar systems at the Google-

plex from time to time. While we approach its first anniversary

of its unveiling witha big PR splash; the official corporate web

page that monitors its performance has been non-operational,

–see http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home.

We have been eager to serve as the self-appointed watch-dog

on the performance of this illustrious solar site. Our FREE public

service PV performance bench-mark website at:

http://www.pvperformance.com/) had demonstrated to be

1% accurate–see comment number 4 ‘…14% of unaccounted

loss of output’ at:

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=49007,

when an EI Solutions staff noted that only 85% of the system

were hooked-up during the first couple of months of its operation

since June 18, 2007. I like to invite Google to fix-up its corporate

web page and share with the world, the health status of this

exemplary system.

Technorati Profile

Disfunctional Googleplex solar monitor

A novel solar monitoring-analyzer

As a neighbor to the Googleplex, I have been very disappointed at the
official Google corporate solar panel website--
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home.

The display has not been functional for months; with a apologetic
message: "Oops! ..., but don't worry -- the solar panels are still working!
Please come back soon."

We have been working on a free public service website that offers
an instant benchmark of predicted performance (output power) for
any solar installation, as described by essential parameters entered
in an online form, --http://www.pvperformance.com/index.php.
It allows a homeowner, or anyone with sufficient knowledge about a
solar installation to check for it's proper performance.

For example, at this time 8:20AM, Mar. 28, 2008, the Sun's intensity
is about 175 w/m*m, and ambient temperature is about 5 degree C.
With publicly known parameters about the Googleplex solar farm,
our methodology predicts an output of 8.8 KW, assuming the panel
temperature to be about 10 degree C. For those curious about
the Googleplex farm performance, or any known solar site, please
visit http://www.pvperformance.com/ and find out.

We hope Google will fix their monitoring problem soon, and that
they will reconsider our offer of free assistance in getting it up and
running. Of course, we would be thrilled if they are willing to pay
for a demonstration of the world's most advanced diagnostic solar
monitoring web page, --see http://www.pvmonitor.net/ivmath.php.
This prototype is close to being completed, and we need financial
support.

Want to know what your PV system should be producing?

To address the problem of prevalent, un-detected, under-performance in many solar installations. We launched a free, public service Real-Time PV Performance bench mark website. It offers a sorely needed performance reference checkpoint for all solar electric system owners, available globally at www.pvperformance.com.

Any solar system owner and operators can now obtain mathematical model derived performance bench marks on line, and stop wondering about how their system is performing.

A visitor to the website, www.wattminder.com, or www.pvperformance.com, simply enters a brief set of values for 'vital statistics' of a solar system. The free performance predictor will output a look-up table for a number of environmental conditions, that this visitor's PV system should be producing at that instance­g iven the Sun's position and the solar array's location and attitude. The values provided serves as a checkpoint for a PV system owner who does not have a monitoring system, or if monitoring system does not indicate how well his/her system is performing. He/She may then manually check on his system's power meter reading, or from display on the inverter readout. If the numbers match, or co-relate well with each other, under somewhat different operating conditions, it would indicate his PV system is performing reasonably well.

Wondering how your solar system is working?

A free PV performance bench mark service

Official Google Blog: Corporate solar is coming

Official Google Blog: Corporate solar is coming

Can Google do it better? Demonstrate the best practices
on the web to lead the way?

How to keep 1.6MW of solar system humming at its optimal?
How can one tell how well it is working? The promised 7.5
year return-on-investment will be missed if the system should
under perform due to problems in design, installation and maintenance issues.

Wattminder has the answer! Real-time measurement compare against precise mathematical model prediction to flag
performance problem instantly. -see www.wattminder.com