In the UK all solar systems that are eligible for the feed-in-tariff must use an MID approved electric generation, which could be a single phase or three phase meter. The owner of a solar power plant will need to make sure that readings are submitted at least every quarter to their FIT licensor to ensure they receive a timely payment for their energy generation. The secondary purpose of taking a reading is to make sure the system is generating energy at the rate it is expected to.
Mitigating the risk of system faults to minimise potential losses
When a reading is only taken every quarter, there is a risk that any malfunction with the power plant may not be detected for several months before it becomes apparent. Which will result in significant lost income, and of course lost energy that has instead been imported from the grid connection at a rate set by the utility. Which defeats the whole point of investing in solar energy in the first place.
To prevent this happening, some form of remote monitoring should be used to ensure the power plant is always online and generating energy. The best way of doing this is using a generation meter with integrated GSM communications for automatic meter reading. This enables an accurate meter reading to be pulled at regular intervals, typically once a day, along with a half-hour profile of energy generation to give a detailed picture of solar energy generation. This reading can be used for the feed-in-tariff submission.
Large scale asset managers rely on remote monitoring
There are many advantages of this, the main one being it prevents the need to physically read the meter. Large scale asset managers with portfolios of several thousand meters rely on automatic meter reading with GSM enabled smart meters for this very reason. Otherwise they would need to send meter reads out to take readings from 1000s of meters every quarter, or rely on residents to submit readings in some way. Automating the process is obviously the only way that portfolio managers can keep track of meter readings and minimise their running costs to maximise the return on investment.
In the long term the cost of investing in a smart generation meter with a network roaming SIM card is a tiny proportion of the total cost of the system which makes it a highly worthwhile investment. The tariff for monitoring services is typically between £20 and £30 a year depending the service level opted for.
