DuckSouth.com

I have a close friend who just installed a solar system on his home. The system requires an internet connection for the company to remote monitor the panels and output for their wattage guarantee. The down side is my friend has no home internet, so I'm trying to find the lowest cost internet service. DSL is not available in his area, his home is to far away from the road for Cable, and Satellite is to expensive (would offset the electrical savings of having solar). I once used NetZero back in the day and is where I started. NetZero does have a free dialup service which will give him 10 hours per month of service. 10 hours is plenty as he could dialup once a week for 30 minutes and be good. The problem that I'm running into is the solar system box connects via WiFi. My question is: what is needed to broadcast a dialup connection as the solar system box needs a WiFi connection?

You're talking over my head but is there a way to do it through an iphone? It has an internet browser and can serve as a wifi hotspot.

does he have a laptop with wifi and a smartphone. He should be able to acceess the solar panals from the laptop and he could tehter a cell phone to the laptop to get his internet service. If your only talking once a week then that should not be a problem.

He has an iPhone and hotspot, but the solar box does not connect. The hotspot works as he was able to connect an iPad to his phone and browse on the ipad. He is being told that he needs a wifi connection and that a hotspot won't work.

The solar box has an IP address printed on a label and something plugged into the side of it. I haven't seen it in person yet, but I'm thinking the device plugged in is likely a USB wifi card?

The solar box has no user interface.

So the solar panel management board only contains on board wireless and does not have the luxury of on board wired NIC? "Usually" with these types of systems it's low use data meaning it simply sending text for reporting purposes to a central server. Hotspot devices from AT&T etc... would be the "easiest" way around it. But since he's wanting to go cheap you could rig up a wireless network through and old desktop by adding in a 56k PCI card. Then connecting the PC to a wireless router. you would have to filter the traffic through the PC as it would be maintaining the internet connection. <- lots of points of failure in that scenario.

You may be able to get by cheaper by using a cellular modem setup similar to what the game cams are using but you would have to find one that's wireless who knows.

Surely there is an interface available similar to what the trail cameras that use a Sim card?

OK, problem potentially solved.

I got the name on the solar device (Enphase Energy) and called Enphase directly. Cellular is possible, but the box would need a software update. Simple as that. Enphase sent the update to the box and tomorrow my buddy will bring the box to his office to connect it to their LAN and let the box update. From there, a TP-Link WiFi adapter is used which is the device I was thinking was a USB WiFi adapter. The software update allows a person to log into the IP web address of the box (like on a router) and change the WiFi settings. As Enphase called it, "makes the box smart enough to handle the WPS connection".

Highspeed DSL is required too and was told to figure 1 hour of data transmission per day of data stored in the box. So if the box is offline for 7 days, you figure 7 hours to upload the data once the box is online. Also, 15-16 hour day of sunlight results into about 64mb of data transmission per month.

I've got a hammer you can borrow! Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Damn! Sounds like a major PITA to save a few bucks on the electric bill!

Problem solved. Did the software update and connected to cellular wifi. I did have some trouble connecting at first, but that was caused by the name of the iPhone. Renamed the phone and connected right away.

Whole system cost my buddy $7000 that he financed for 18 months same as cash. The $7000 he could have used to pay for it is sitting in his account building interest. He has (30) 250w panels on his roof. 25 years parts and labor warranty on everything and they guarantee the output performance. Which is the reason for the need for wifi so it can transmit to their server for monitoring. If the output is less than their guarantee, then they write him a check for the difference.


One thing to mention on solar systems. The Electric Companies do not pay you for the wattage you put into the grid. They do what is called Net Banking. During the daytime when your not drawing from the grid and your array is producing, your meter spins backwards generating a credit on your account. During the evening and your pulling from the grid, your meter spins normal and uses up the credit. This is how you get a "near zero" or "zero" bill. Think of this like rollover minutes on a cellular plan. You never actually get paid for the minutes you don't use, but if you go over one month, you draw from that build up of minutes. That said, you don't want your array to be overly large to where you have a constant excess of wattage. Reason being is it will cost you to install the extra panels, but you will get no gain from them as the electric company will never pay you for the excess wattage.

What is the name of the company that will install this?