As an engineer with a broad background in missile telemetry, gyro error modeling, test and verification, VLSI design, microcontroller development & diagnostic, most recently adding web- based instrumentation; this vision has been evolving in my head.
Mixing semantics, artificial intelligence, internet-of-things, and wireless connectivity; the any-time any-where effectivity promise is becoming a reality.
It is also driven by the fact that our tool is accessible 90% by English-fluent users, which only make up about 10% of the solar energy owners and operators of the world. How do we help the other 90% of solar array owners and operators? A brief experiment using Google Translate on our home page, and with email anouncements into German, Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese and Japanese helped somewhat, raising our Alexa traffic rank to reach 7.5M.(It now stands at 18.5M.)
My curren plan is to explore adopting Semantic Web resources, and Natural Language Processing, to enable crude interactive, question-and-answer sequence to capture our visitor's central issue and offer some analytics, assessment, or diagnostics; based on what has been assimilated during the Q&A phase, which occurs in a visitor's chosen language.
I'm challenging the academic community to try its work-in-progress on building up this multi-lingual interactive Q&A issue discovery engine.

Footnote: Partial and recent exploration with bobkirby.no-ip.org and Panlex.org offer a few dots(pixel) in the big picture, so to speak.

The discovery of RaspberryPi was an shot in the arm for Wattminter-PVwizard.
It is an even better web bridge than the Arduino-Ethernet.
The RaspberryPi even changed the course for Wattminder; it spawned a new
business unit, WattminderInstruments.com, our contribution towards the open-
hardware paradigm for the world of Internet-of-Things.
We are working on our KickStarter project to launch WattminderInstruments.com.
It will bring internet connectivity, as well as nano-computing power to the individuals.
We are rolling out 'Personal Electronic Bench', an educational and practical testbed, with
web interface for for all things physical--lights, temperature, color related science,
electronics experimentation.
We are also developing a $25 instrumentation gateway--an industrial, robust,
enhanced version of RaspberryPi for our core solar array monitoring and diagnostics.
It is also a venue for Wattminder to contribute towards STEM --Science Technology,
Engineering and Math --education iniative.
Stay tuned for more.

I came upon a showcase display at Lowes for Nest, advertising a reduced $198 price tag. Digging in, I learn that it has 10 wires to be connected to existing heating & cooling equipment. So it is not a simple installation by average homeowners.
What's inspiring is its two proximity sensors --near and far, and the background web-server intelligence. I admire the amount of hype it has garnered over the past few months, since everything else is not new. It took all the thunder away from competitor already in the smart thermostat market. I sense there is more brewing for future products to follow, in the realm of smart home or building.

A medicine site, http://www.medicinenet.com/mercury_poisoning/article.htm implies a link to dementia from mercury poisoning. I remain to be convinced, but I want to play it safe.
Solar power will contribute to reduced coal burning and should be greatly expanded.

Wattminder is here to help with improved solar energy production.

I made a survey about features and options offered by solar inverter manufacturers.
There are no less than 65 brands now fighting to be installed to converter DC electricity to AC and feed the grid. Data interface, communication protocols abound, most prevalent being ethernet. Many offer sensors, weather station, and free portal for access. Some offer Wi-Fi and Blue Tooth access for remote portable display. These features can easily provide vehicle for Wattminder's analytics!
See https://docs.google.com/document/d/17Vf4Wk-ffICDPbZUfkDN2o8YwOpIaXMgvPt-PrB2LWw/edit

An exploratory call to our competition in Austin TX, gave me a revelation that we've missed a key point all these years--We need to associate the performance, or underperformance of an array in financial terms. People will pay more attention if we did that. It is a complicated challenge, with 50 states and 2000 utilities, dozens of rate-payer & incentive structures, the financial impact of a solar array is hard to pin down. Nominally, one could use $0.2 per kWh and be in the ball park.
Our urgent task will put a wrapper of dollars and cents to our display of kW, in our web pages.

The Wattminder team has been building up the web application framework for our two innovations --Complex Irradiance Photonmeter(CIP), and our Dust Model; besides our main thrust, the HotSpot Detection and Prognostic inference engine.
Our direction has been validated by a dozen papers at PVSC38 in Austin TX this year on effect of dust, snow, and clouds upon solar arrays.
Our CIP, affectionately referred to as 'Tinman', is able to detect the 'cloud enhancing' condition--irradiance as high as 1400 w/MM, with its 9 directional components of Suns energy measured.
Our Dust algorithm is also getting finalized and is being tested. Our clients or free users will benefit from these innovations. For example, we'll be able to issue advisory about solar arrays in areas that their arrays maybe suffering degradation of 7.5% due to a layer(un-washed) of dust; and it's time to wash it down.

Area 9, Modules and Terrestrial Systems sessions were well attended with its large hall assignment.
Soiling, Dust, Cloud, Snow, Partial Shade-Hotspot's impact on array performance, their characterization & modeling, irradiance sensors got much attention with over 30 oral & poster sessions.

part 3 of 5, Layman’s Explanations
PVwizard evolved from our original PV Performance Benchmark calculator web page deployed as pvmonitor.net, back in Nov. 2007.
We were motivated to create this tool to help average Joe the solar power array owner checkup on the performance of their precious investment. Since, on the surface, things may
look normal, and the power meter is spinning backwards. Question is how well is the array doing in transforming Sun’s light energy into electricity? We found that mathematical model developed by Sandia Laboratory provides a basis for our tool. We had abstracted the dozens of equations into one simple equation that can be computed easily.
In order to apply our model with actual values of parameters in the equation, you need to consult the datasheet that maybe provided to you by your contractor, usually in a binder that includes spreadshet analysis of financials and system design, component list, documentation, and warranties. You should have no trouble identifying the parameters needed for our equation. Your smartphone, coupled with our free PVwizard App, can be a valuable resource in automating much of the site parameter determination, and making it a fun experience to checkup on your solar array.

In plain English, what our three analytical functions can do for you:
Performance Benchmark, a calculator that assimilate parameter values about your solar array, along with environmental conditions and compute what your solar array should be producing, under no-fault condition in Watts. (It also works with energy values from power meters, or web page displays.) Two key environmental factors are local irradiance and cell temperatures (derived from ambient temperature). When these two parameters are not precisely known, we provide a table of variability, so that you may see what range of output values may apply for the current operating condition.
Performance Check, as a registered user, when you can access your array’s output in KW, our calculator can tell you how well your array is producing; given the current set of operating condition. So having sensors for irradiance, and cell temperature would appreciably increase the confidence level of our assessment.
Degradation Assessment, as a registered user, after you’ve accumulated a history of recorded measurement (everytime you ran a Benchmark, or Performance Check, you have the option to record the output value into our database); you can request for an assessment of how much had your array degraded (in apparent performance, including all factors impacting your array), in Watts, also in percentages.

part 4 of 5, Application of PVwizard Features

Our primary goal is to assist solar power owners and operators to keep an eye on their systems’ performance, regardless if they are being monitored by other providers. In reality, most new projects configured as PPA, or lease contracts are equipped with instrumentation and web monitoring. However most monitoring providers do not offer analytics, much less diagnostics on the over-all performance of the array.

Our Benchmark calculator may also be used as a corrolary tool for site analysis, and planning purposes. You’ll gain additional insight with PVwizard, when compared with other site assessment tools, since our tool works instantly, and is available on-demand, without need to download and install software.

part 5 of 5 Work-in-Progress & Future Enhancements

The primary thrust of our current development is our DOE grant sponsored ‘Web-Based Hotspot detection and diagnostic engine for solar arrays’ demonstration platform now being constructed at CMU-SV campus on the grounds of NASA Moffett Field. (see ‘Word's most instrumented solar array’). By adopting the latest system on chip technology from Cypress Semiconductor, our diagnostic enginer running on a database server, will be able to detect and diagnose hotspot, or partial shading condition occurring on solar array being monitored with our 1-chip, all inclusive
sensor signal conditioning, instrumentation, pre-processing, data convertion, and TCP/IP streaming from remote sites into our web server and performing diagnostics in near real-time.
The NRE cost of this technology is expected to be at .25?/Watt, which is orders of magnitude lower than all current sensor instrumentation & data gateway offerings by monitoring service providers.

Easy and open API for enabling a suite of advanced analytics delivered through SOAP services by our diagnostic engine is being readied to allow in the background, machine to machine communications for a range of analytical, diagnostic services on any web-monitored solar power site. These could be once a day, or any number of sampling per day, hour, minute using measurement records. When a full set of site parameters are available, as well as some historic data on a site, our analytics will be able to crunch the numbers and arrive at qualified
assessment of performance at time of measurement.

Also in development are smartphone apps that enable interesting and engaging user experience for applying our tools for anytime anywhere access. Longer term projects include international language, semantic web-natural language interface, such that each encounter with our PVwizard becomes an educational lesson. We are also building a skeletal framework to leverage the power of the crowd, or community in growing knowledge about solar arrays in operation.
A few more advanced features are also being investigated. ...to be continued.

References:

Performance analysis of photovoltaic installations in a Solar America City, Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2009 34th IEEE 7-12 June 2009

Author(s): Gostein, M. Atonometrics, Inc., Austin, TX, USA Hershey, R. ; Dunn, L. ; Stueve, B.

part 3 of 5, <B>Layman’s Explanations</B>
PVwizard evolved from our original PV Performance Benchmark calculator web page deployed as pvmonitor.net, back in Nov. 2007.
We were motivated to create this tool to help average Joe the solar power array owner checkup on the performance of their precious investment. Since, on the surface, things may
look normal, and the power meter is spinning backwards. Question is how well is the array doing in transforming Sun’s light energy into electricity? We found that mathematical model developed by Sandia Laboratory provides a basis for our tool. We had abstracted the dozens of equations into one simple equation that can be computed easily.
In order to apply our model with actual values of parameters in the equation, you need to consult the datasheet that maybe provided to you by your contractor, usually in a binder that includes spreadshet analysis of financials and system design, component list, documentation, and warranties. You should have no trouble identifying the parameters needed for our equation. Your smartphone, coupled with our free PVwizard App, can be a valuable resource in automating much of the site parameter determination, and making it a fun experience to checkup on your solar array.

In plain English, what our three analytical functions can do for you:
Performance Benchmark, a calculator that assimilate parameter values about your solar array, along with environmental conditions and compute what your solar array should be producing, under no-fault condition in Watts. (It also works with energy values from power meters, or web page displays.) Two key environmental factors are local irradiance and cell temperatures (derived from ambient temperature). When these two parameters are not precisely known, we provide a table of variability, so that you may see what range of output values may apply for the current operating condition.
Performance Check, as a registered user, when you can access your array’s output in KW, our calculator can tell you how well your array is producing; given the current set of operating condition. So having sensors for irradiance, and cell temperature would appreciably increase the confidence level of our assessment.
Degradation Assessment, as a registered user, after you’ve accumulated a history of recorded measurement (everytime you ran a Benchmark, or Performance Check, you have the option to record the output value into our database); you can request for an assessment of how much had your array degraded (in apparent performance, including all factors impacting your array), in Watts, also in percentages.

part 4 of 5, Application of PVwizard Features

Our primary goal is to assist solar power owners and operators to keep an eye on their systems’ performance, regardless if they are being monitored by other providers. In reality, most new projects configured as PPA, or lease contracts are equipped with instrumentation and web monitoring. However most monitoring providers do not offer analytics, much less diagnostics on the over-all performance of the array.

Our Benchmark calculator may also be used as a corrolary tool for site analysis, and planning purposes. You’ll gain additional insight with PVwizard, when compared with other site assessment tools, since our tool works instantly, and is available on-demand, without need to download and install software.

part 5 of 5 Work-in-Progress & Future Enhancements

The primary thrust of our current development is our DOE grant sponsored ‘Web-Based Hotspot detection and diagnostic engine for solar arrays’ demonstration platform now being constructed at CMU-SV campus on the grounds of NASA Moffett Field. (see ‘Word's most instrumented solar array’). By adopting the latest system on chip technology from Cypress Semiconductor, our diagnostic enginer running on a database server, will be able to detect and diagnose hotspot, or partial shading condition occurring on solar array being monitored with our 1-chip, all inclusive
sensor signal conditioning, instrumentation, pre-processing, data convertion, and TCP/IP streaming from remote sites into our web server and performing diagnostics in near real-time.
The NRE cost of this technology is expected to be at .25?/Watt, which is orders of magnitude lower than all current sensor instrumentation & data gateway offerings by monitoring service providers.

Easy and open API for enabling a suite of advanced analytics delivered through SOAP services by our diagnostic engine is being readied to allow in the background, machine to machine communications for a range of analytical, diagnostic services on any web-monitored solar power site. These could be once a day, or any number of sampling per day, hour, minute using measurement records. When a full set of site parameters are available, as well as some historic data on a site, our analytics will be able to crunch the numbers and arrive at qualified
assessment of performance at time of measurement.

Also in development are smartphone apps that enable interesting and engaging user experience for applying our tools for anytime anywhere access. Longer term projects include international language, semantic web-natural language interface, such that each encounter with our PVwizard becomes an educational lesson. We are also building a skeletal framework to leverage the power of the crowd, or community in growing knowledge about solar arrays in operation.
A few more advanced features are also being investigated. ...to be continued.

References:

Performance analysis of photovoltaic installations in a Solar America City, Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2009 34th IEEE 7-12 June 2009

Author(s): Gostein, M. Atonometrics, Inc., Austin, TX, USA Hershey, R. ; Dunn, L. ; Stueve, B.