Satellite monitoring system for remote PV-systems

A major part of autonomous renewable energy applications-such as PV-are electricity supplies in regions with no grid, no telephone coverage, and often with difficult accessibility. Commonly systems in such regions are supervised by yearly visits in conjunction with a data logger. Over the lifetime of a system the costs for supervision often significantly exceeds the cost of the system itself. Response time for maintenance, repair and product improvements is poor. To overcome these disadvantages a data satellite transmission system using Brazilian satellites was set up in this project: It is compatible to the ARGOS protocol, facilitates small transmitters and has a full equatorial coverage. The satellite data is transferred via ftp from the ground station in to the Internet server of the PV-Labs at UFRJ in Rio, and is published from there worldwide via WWW. The advantages are manifold: sponsors (NGOs, World Bank, national foundations, public etc.) have an immediate access to the projects ("Where did my money go?"), manufacturers can use the data to improve their products, and-last but not least-the online monitoring system provokes more public interest in the PV area.