Founded in 2003, Fat Spaniel Technologies is the leading independent provider of critical monitoring and reporting services for the renewable energy industry. Today, the company’s solutions are utilized by solar power producers, financiers, system integrators, and OEMs. Fat Spaniel solutions help optimize energy output, reduce operations and maintenance costs, contain risk, and increase return on investment for renewable energy power plant projects.
Fat Spaniel solutions address industry needs in three mission-critical areas:
- Operations & Maintenance: Optimize uptime and output while keeping the costs of O&M under control
- Revenue-Grade Data Services: Gain independent, verifiable data for billing, agency reporting, Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) reporting, and production analysis
- Marketing & Education: Review and share web-based, graphical visualizations of system status and performance, to increase the impact of clean energy systems
The Renewable Energy Industry
Solar electric power has come of age, with mature proven technologies spurring growth of this worldwide market. Preliminary reports indicate that the solar electric (photovoltaic) industry exceeded 12 gigawatts (GWp) of total installed plant capacity in 2008. Estimates for 2009 include new plant capacity increase between 4 GWp and 5 GWp, and analysts expect, by 2012, that cumulative capacity will reach 40 GWp.
Wind power continues to grow as well, with many similarities to solar in terms of management and monitoring requirements.
Despite the tremendous investment in renewable energy production, challenges still exist for the monitoring, management, and optimization of these systems. Why? Because solar and wind electric plants are highly distributed – they require solutions that can be cost-effectively managed remotely. Fat Spaniel Technologies stands out in this field, helping energy producers leverage the Internet to tackle the unique needs of renewable energy sites.
Today, more than 2,500 renewable power plants in 20 countries around the world use Fat Spaniel’s monitoring and reporting services.
Products
Fat Spaniel is a provider of lifecycle management solutions for the renewable energy industry. Fat Spaniel offers best-in-class renewable energy portfolio management for project developers, integrators, energy consumers, and OEMs. Their highly scalable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) foundation with an open integration platform providing the broadest support for inverter manufacturers and models compatible across technologies and regions.
Fat Spaniel’s Solar Plant Vision and Solar Operations Services build on the company’s experience pioneering technology and providing solutions for 2500 solar photovoltaic (PV) plants around the world. The first two Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) editions of Solar Plant Vision meet the needs of solar PV plant operators and project developers. For customers that want a turnkey service, Solar Operations Services complement the company’s SaaS offering with a staff of operations experts that oversee and manage daily operations. The new Fat Spaniel Lifecycle Management solutions are tailored for the business models and distinct job functions spanning commercial, municipal, federal, utility, educational, and residential solar projects.
Insight Views empowers customers to explain the advantages of their investment in renewable energy. Showcasing real-time production statistics and environmental benefits, Insight Views can be integrated into corporate Web sites or rendered in Adobe FlashTM for display on large-screen video in building lobbies or high-traffic areas.
The software foundation of all Fat Spaniel services is Insight Platform, the world’s first open intelligence platform for building, sharing and running energy data applications. Insight Platform provides an open information architecture that enables application developers, system integrators, equipment manufacturers and others in the renewable energy industry to extend their existing monitoring resources and develop new service capabilities.
All Fat Spaniel power plant monitoring systems are designed using best-of-class instrumentation provided by their Partners. A comprehensive array of data collection, inverter monitoring, power metering, communications networking and environmental assessment components are available, along with robust solutions for wired- and wireless communications, IT component failure detection, and end-to-end security.
