Archive Press Releases
Fat Spaniel Provides SaaS Solution for Storm Sustainability’s Education Portal
SAN JOSE, Calif. - May 12, 2010 - Fat Spaniel Technologies, Inc., a provider of lifecycle management services for renewable energy systems, announced its relationship with Storm Sustainability Ltd. to provide comprehensive solar monitoring services for their educational portal, SunskoolTM.
Storm Sustainability takes advantage of Fat Spaniel Technologies system, turning real-time renewable energy system performance data into an educational tool, Sunskool. The Sunskool website provides up-to-the-minute information about how much energy each Sunskool is generating and how much energy the school is using. The web-based portal is now the most comprehensive solar monitoring service available to schools in Australia, allowing classrooms to log-in and see how much energy their school is generating and consuming.
Storm Sustainability is a highly experienced contracting, design, and installation company focused on delivering innovative and sustainable water, solar, and resource monitoring solutions. Working with its partners in industry and government, the company is committed to promoting awareness about resource management and conservation. Storm Sustainability’s growing team of experts and wealth of knowledge helps meet customers’ needs while protecting the environment.
“If we don’t change the way people think, and encourage them to embrace sustainability, technology can’t accomplish the real goal of responsible energy,” said Peter Wilson, director of technology and innovation at Storm Sustainability. “Using the Fat Spaniel services, we gained a flexible API for building the Sunskool portal and as a result we can now bring renewable energy from the rooftop into the classroom and make it real for kids. Fat Spaniel gives us easy access to all of the data, and we use it to help students and teachers appreciate the whole energy cycle. It’s really motivating when they can see how to make a difference in terms of carbon footprint and conservation.”
Storm Sustainability plans to release other dashboards for schools, helping them raise awareness about water conservation. Fat Spaniel services will help them monitor and report real-time conditions for harvesting rainwater and for identifying system leaks to eliminate undetected waste. Fat Spaniel services are also enabling Storm Sustainability to provide resource management solutions to both residential and commercial customers.
Teachers are using Sunskool to raise a new generation of enlightened energy consumers. With increased awareness, the whole school community actively embraces the solar projects and helps to increase the overall benefits achieved with the alternative energy solutions.
“Working with Storm, we provide the most comprehensive solar monitoring service available,” said Randy Rajagopal, senior director of marketing at Fat Spaniel. “This state of the art technology enables schools to educate children by taking the data off the roof and directly into the classroom. Fat Spaniel is a global leader in renewable energy management and we can help Storm grow a worldwide Sunskool community. Storm’s Sunskool portal can ultimately drive energy consumption behavior modification through educational programs worldwide.”
To read the full Fat Spaniel and Sunskool case study, visit http://www.fatspaniel.com/news-events/collateral-kit/case-studies.
About Fat Spaniel
Fat Spaniel Technologies, Inc. is the leading provider of lifecycle management services for the renewable energy industry. Solar power producers, financiers, system integrators, plant owners, and OEMs take advantage of Fat Spaniel’s category-defining Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions to maximize system uptime, energy output, and return on investment. Fat Spaniel’s lifecycle management solutions empower renewable energy component vendors to provide fully manageable solutions and inspire application developers to innovate advanced Web-based energy applications and visualizations. With its partners and customers, Fat Spaniel shares the vision of a world where renewable energy is the first and best energy source, deployed in 28 countries and more than 4,000 locations worldwide. For more information, please visit www.fatspaniel.com.
Tags: Fat Spaniel, renewable energy, solar, Storm Sustainability, Sunskool
American Capital Energy Chooses Fat Spaniel’s Optimized ROI Services
San Jose, Calif. - April 28, 2010 - Fat Spaniel Technologies, Inc., a provider of lifecycle management services for renewable energy systems, announced that American Capital Energy (ACE) has now deployed Fat Spaniel’s Solar Operations ServicesTM. Solar Operations Services (SOS) provides proactive management and monitoring for a portfolio of Fat Spaniel-enabled solar PV plant sites. The Solar Operations Services solution gives customers the choice of using existing field service personnel, or optionally contracting a team by choosing qualified personnel from a list maintained by Fat Spaniel.
ACE is comprised of a team of solar project integration professionals that are focused on providing solar power systems - front to back. ACE holds operations and maintenance contracts for most of their deployed solar projects. With the complexity of managing multiple solar projects and the problems that are associated with them, ACE’s technical staff was inundated with orchestrating field teams to diagnose and address on-site issues. This caused possible voids on performance, operations, and maintenance contracts that were being held by ACE.
In order to manage the day-to-day performance of each solar project, ACE adopted Fat Spaniel’s Solar Operations Service solution to provide real-time data monitoring and analytics for each asset in their portfolio. With this new software service, ACE can receive events and alarms for each installation if a problem exists and they can track performance degradation across one or more projects.
“On each issue that was not straightforward or obvious, the service saved me an average of two hours to diagnose and resolve the issue,” said Ryan McDonald, Electrical Engineer from ACE. “If you are interested in accurate error diagnosis and timely resolutions on your solar projects, then I would highly recommend Solar Operations Services from Fat Spaniel.”
In an increasing portfolio of projects, Solar Operations Services not only increased project up-time but also maximized new project commissioning and deployment. The time and resource savings that Solar Operations Services provided quickly paid for the initial investment. Solar Operations Services provided ACE with reliability and solar domain expertise, in turn, minimizing internal resources and performance contract violations.
“SOS is designed to create a closer customer partnership,” said Robert Tagg, Director of Support Operations for Fat Spaniel Technologies. “SOS is designed to drive cost from our customer’s bottom line while enhancing customer satisfaction. Fat Spaniel strives to ensure that our technical methodology, will of commitment, and cutting edge development will elevate ACE’s business and our growing partnership, to a solid position in the financial management of distributed power.”
To read the full Fat Spaniel and ACE case study, visit: http://www.fatspaniel.com.
Tags: Fat Spaniel, renewable energy, solar
Fat Spaniel Technologies Chosen by Cuvaison Estate Wines
San Jose, Calif. - April 21, 2010 - Fat Spaniel Technologies, Inc., a provider of lifecycle management services for renewable energy systems, announced that Cuvaison Estate Wines has deployed Fat Spaniel’s Solar Plant VisionTM. Cuvaison is among the early adopters of green technologies and practices, and solar has been a site-friendly solution for its operations in Napa Valley. To meet the requirements for California Solar Initiative (CSI) rebates, and to drive new practices that minimize the winery’s impact on the environment, they rely extensively on Fat Spaniel services.
“We continue to look into ways of creating positive change within our own organization,” said Jay Schuppert, president of Cuvaison. ”The Fat Spaniel service helps us be better global citizens-we have browser-based access to easily understandable information and can see where we have room to improve. The introduction of the monitoring technology was very smooth, and it is has quickly become an integral tool for our business.”
Cuvaison is currently a certified “Napa Green” operation, exclusively relying on its solar PV system to power its Carneros winery location. Sunlight Electric handled the initial sizing, the rebate applications, the installation, and the ongoing monitoring and support of the solar equipment and Fat Spaniel solution. The Fat Spaniel Technologies services assist the installer’s support team, and also give Cuvaison complete access to current and historical energy and environmental impact data.
“Our lifecycle management services give businesses like Cuvaison the oversight that is required to maximize their return on investments in renewable energy,” said Matthew Powell, CEO, Fat Spaniel Technologies. “The visibility provided by our services leads to insights that can change behaviors, and at the same time it introduces the transparency that is required for participation in state and federal programs. And it’s all made easy with our at-a-glance web views and automated alerts, helping Cuvaison to stay focused on the business of making world-class wines.”
About Fat Spaniel
Fat Spaniel Technologies, Inc. is the leading provider of lifecycle management services for the renewable energy industry. Solar power producers, financiers, system integrators, plant owners, and OEMs take advantage of Fat Spaniel’s category-defining Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions to maximize system uptime, energy output, and return on investment. Fat Spaniel’s lifecycle management solutions empower renewable energy component vendors to provide fully manageable solutions and inspire application developers to innovate advanced Web-based energy applications and visualizations. With its partners and customers, Fat Spaniel shares the vision of a world where renewable energy is the first and best energy source, deployed in 28 countries and more than 4,000 locations worldwide. For more information, please visit www.fatspaniel.com.
Tags: Cuvaison, Fat Spaniel, renewable energy, solar
Fat Spaniel Technologies and Tendril Bring Smart Energy Home to Utilities and Consumers
Anaheim, Calif. - October 27, 2009 - Today at Solar Power International 2009, Fat Spaniel Technologies, a global provider of lifecycle management solutions for the renewable energy industry, announced a partnership with Boulder-based Tendril, a leading smart grid home energy management solutions company. The two companies will join forces to create a complete utility-facing solution for residential energy management incorporating data and analytics from renewable energy sources. Fat Spaniel’s Insight PlatformTM, which enables sophisticated performance management of renewable energy portfolios, will be integrated with the Tendril Residential Energy Ecosystem (TREE) Platform. The enterprise-class TREE Platform, with engaging in-home devices and a suite of utility applications, provides a secure, end-to-end, easy-to-deploy, open, standards-based energy management system that empowers consumers to take control of their energy consumption. With unprecedented scalability, reliability and extensibility, the TREE Platform provides utilities with demand response, energy efficiency and variable pricing, along with a platform for future applications such as distributed generation management and vehicle-to-grid. The TREE Platform is currently being field tested in utility trials and pilots across the country. Visit booth 1710 for more information on our products and solutions.
“In today’s clean energy economy, effectively integrating renewable energy into residential load management is crucial in bringing us to the next level of the smart grid” said Adrian Tuck, CEO of Tendril. “Combined with our deep experience with home area networking and utility back-end services, this partnership with Fat Spaniel will enable us to offer an optimal solution for utilities and consumers to seamlessly consolidate, process and manage data from distributed generation sources such as solar and wind.”
With more than 37 percent of total U.S. generated power consumed by residential customers, the combined solution will enable consumers and utilities to reduce costs and increase energy conservation by enabling effective load control and optimal utilization of renewable energy. Although renewable energy portfolios pose a specific challenge due to their uneven generation from multiple sources, Fat Spaniel’s suite of lifecycle management solutions is able to accurately monitor, analyze and process information essential for load control from renewable portfolios, therefore managing renewable energy as a dispatchable service for residential and utility customers. Integrating disaggregated household consumption and distributed generation data provides utilities with significantly improved ability for residential predictive modeling and dispatchable load analytics.
“Tendril has reinvented the industry from simple home automation to next-generation home energy management,” added Matthew Powell, CEO of Fat Spaniel Technologies. “Together with TREE, Fat Spaniel’s life-cycle management technology will deliver a comprehensive suite of demand-response programs for utilities and consumers, increasing overall capabilities in tracking and managing energy consumption to include renewable energy systems.”
About Fat Spaniel
Fat Spaniel Technologies, Inc. is the leading provider of Lifecycle Management services for the renewable energy industry. Solar power producers, financiers, system integrators, plant owners, and OEMs take advantage of Fat Spaniel’s category-defining Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions to maximize system uptime, energy output, and return on investment. Fat Spaniel’s Lifecycle Management solutions empower renewable energy component vendors to provide fully manageable solutions and inspire application developers to innovate advanced Web-based energy applications and visualizations. With its partners and customers, Fat Spaniel shares the vision of a world where renewable energy is the first and best energy source, deployed in 23 countries and more than 3,000 locations worldwide. For more information, please visit www.fatspaniel.com.
About Tendril Networks
Tendril enables true 21st century energy efficiency by establishing actionable dialogue between consumers and their energy providers. The Tendril Residential Energy Ecosystem (TREE) is comprised of a comprehensive suite of energy management applications (like Demand Response, Energy Efficiency and Pricing) and a suite of in-home hardware (like thermostats, in-home displays and smart outlets) that are extended to consumers and utilities over an open and standards-based platform that guarantees secure, auditable transactions and enterprise-class communications. TREE is a consumer-centric ecosystem that is designed to integrate seamlessly with a Utility`s or Energy Retailers` existing back office applications and network infrastructure allowing consumers and their energy companies to communicate, collaborate and create - Smart Energy for Life. Tendril’s home energy management vision is being delivered in concert with leading industry companies including; GE, Intel, Itron, Landis & Gyr, Ember and others. Tendril is venture backed by VantagePoint Venture Partners, Good Energies, RRE Ventures, Vista Ventures and Appian Ventures.
Tags: Fat Spaniel, renewable energy, solar, Solar Power International, Tendril
Defining Today’s Utility-Grade Solar
There is a lot of discussion in the industry today about whether or not utilities are doing enough to implement solar. Today, solar energy currently only accounts for less than one percent of all energy worldwide (as SolarBuzz notes per DOE numbers), which suggests that many utilities are not taking solar seriously. So what is standing in the way of the industry rolling out truly utility-grade solar?
To begin, it’s important to define what is meant by the term “utility-grade solar”. Utility-grade solar refers to a more holistic, all encompassing approach to solar that can scale to serve a multitude of markets including residential, commercial, education, healthcare, etc. Yes, many utilities are already involved in solar today - but not to the degree that they could be. Many have offerings that are only offered to a specific segment of the market, but do not have the capacity (today, at least) to expand those offerings.
Recently the Solar Energy Power Association (SEPA) issued their 2008 “Top Ten Utility Solar Rankings” report, which reports that utilities’ use of solar doubled in 2008. SolarBuzz confirms this, stating that worldwide solar installations increased to 5,948 MW in 2008, up from 2,826 MW in 2007. So, it is clear that the utilities have a deep, vested interest in solar and are making an effort to deploy the systems that will help them to scale their offerings to serve all markets.
While the utilities’ increased interest in solar is encouraging, there is a shift that still needs to take place to move from mere utilization of solar as part of the overall power portfolio mix, to truly achieving utility-grade solar offerings. Because the total output of a single solar or wind plant is usually far less than that of a traditional energy plant, many more renewable plants are required to produce a similar amount of electricity. As a result, managing solar electric power production requires a new operational paradigm.
At Fat Spaniel, we refer to this new operational paradigm as the implementation of Energy Intelligence systems. Energy Intelligence systems are industrial-grade offerings that give utility companies a fast, easy start-up with a comprehensive set of applications that includes:
- Real-time plant management
- Advanced analytics for optimizing performance
- Features for supporting mobile personnel
- A suite of revenue-generating services including agency reporting, renewable energy certificate (REC) registration, and environmental reporting
These Energy Intelligence systems provide power plant monitoring via integration with a large number and a wide variety of components for data collection, inverter monitoring, power metering, communications networking and environmental assessment. Robust solutions are also available for wired- and wireless communications, IT component failure detection, and end-to-end security.
We are firm believers that the utilities industry is making great steps in their increasing deployment of solar systems. The implementation of these Energy Intelligence systems provide the important next step to transition the utilities to offering full, complete utility-grade solar to all markets.
Write back to us at “dogblog at fatspaniel dot com” to share your views.
Tags: renewable energy, SEPA, utility-grade solar
Solid State Technology
Solar Shootout in the San Joachin Valley
Tags: PV, renewable energy, solar energy
Thin-Film Solar: A Primer and a Case Study
Especially in this economic landscape, thin-film solar has become all the rage. Industry figures indicate that the annual growth rate worldwide was 60% from 2002-2007 and that is expected to grow as the production costs of thin-film solar continues to drop. Forbes recently mentioned thin-film solar as one of the “Five Technologies Set to Change the Decade”.The reasons are simple – thin-film solar brings the promise of combining the following benefits:
- Lower Cost – Thin-film solar technologies reduce the amount of light absorbing material required in creating a solar cell. This can lead to reduced processing costs from that of bulk materials (in the case of silicon thin film)
- Flexible and Light Weight – As opposed to bulk silicon wafers (used “traditional” solar panels), thin-film solar is considerably lighter and highly flexible, making deployment much easier.
- Greater Efficiency – Early thin-film solar technologies tended to be less efficient at converting light to energy (an average 7% to 10%). However, many of the newer, multi-layer thin films now achieve efficiencies greater than those of bulk silicon wafers.
Thin-film solar technologies are only about five years old at this point, and as such, the economies of scale for the technology are still improving. In fact, efficiency gains and new production technologies are expected to reduce thin-film solar manufacturing costs to less than $1/Wp within the next year. As such, here at Fat Spaniel we continue to see more and more interest in thin-film solar technologies, and we continue to provide the monitoring and intelligence for these new systems as well.
Case Study
In fact, just last week one of our customers – Conergy – announced a large thin-film solar deployment in California’s San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID). The system is believed to be the world’s first single-axis solar tracking system featuring thin-film photovoltaic cells. The 419-kilowatt system went live in late March, and is the second phase of a 1.6 MW solar energy solution that will save the irrigation district nearly $400,000 a year in utility costs, allow it to reap millions of dollars in state cash incentives and stabilize customer costs in the midst of a state-wide water crisis.
Here’s what SSJID’s General Manager, Jeff Shields, had to say about the deployment:
“The application of thin-film on a solar tracking system as a way to optimize energy output in perennially-dusty or overcast areas is generating a great deal of excitement not only among those in areas with conditions similar to the Central Valley, but among economic policymakers and environmental stewards in Washington, D.C. We’re eager to continue our work with Conergy to bring this solution — and the important data it’s generating in our cost-benefit analysis — to light.”
According to Conergy’s Western U.S. Project Director David Vincent, market-tested First Solar thin-film modules were selected for the Phase 2 tracking solution because they perform at a lower cost-per-watt than traditional crystalline.
“Thin-film is a much more cost-effective way to generate power — and it can outperform monocrystalline in areas prone to hazy, overcast conditions — or in industries that generate dust or high degrees of air particulates,” said Vincent. “Early indications show the output per DC kW of First Solar thin-film is about 10% higher than that of crystalline,” he added.
To help SSJID monitor system output, Conergy is using our energy monitoring and intelligence solutions to monitor and manage the system. This allows Battles and the SSJID team to log onto the Web and gauge system performance from their business offices – nearly 22 miles west of the actual solar arrays. A bonus is that through the Fat Spaniel Web site, they’re also able to compare the 1 MW, Phase 1 SSJID tracking system with several other systems, among them a 1 MW fixed-axis roof-mount system on a fruit-packing house in nearby Hanford, California — a system that Conergy also installed.
We are very excited by the continued advances in thin-film solar technology, and think that the dropping production prices, ease of deployment and the increasing efficiencies will continue to drive this industry forward.
Write back to us at “dogblog at fatspaniel dot com” to share your views.
Tags: energy intelligence, renewable energy, San Joaquin Irrigation District, solar energy, solar monitoring, solar technology, thin film
The Daily Democrat
Tags: education, renewable energy, solar
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Tags: education, renewable energy, solar
EcoGeek
Smarter Buildings with Distributed Control
Tags: renewable energy, solar
