This from William Fitch's OP: "This is what happens when you send your data connection half way around the world to get the info from your "backyard" into your house."
And: "In short, keep your data local. If you have to use connectivity, use methodologies that are unlikely to change or go obsolete. Or you can K.I.S.S and email a data file."
Thanks for saying what at least some of us were thinking! I get calls like this too, and I'd rather teach a man to fish, and show them how they don't actually need some app on their phone to generate electricity. If there's background stuff that needs to happen with the utility or the financial institution, that's a different case. Taking these needs into account helps to comprise better service after sale.
I've been following a similar discussion thread taking place on a totally different RSS feed:
There are some crazy--and embarrassing--stories in that thread! As the OP in that thread says, "I am not interested at all in connecting something that should help me get off the grid to the internet. Combine that with security issues and I'm starting to think we're collectively folding our arms behind our back and intentionally falling forwards."
For me, it's just a shame in general that a product and industry promoting itself as adding resilience to people's lives, in opposition to an ever-mounting current of well-funded criticism from the fossil fuel industry (e.g. Texas cold snap deaths blamed on renewables in some media), could indulge itself the soft underbelly of reliance on Big Tech and, perhaps just as bad, more ephemeral small tech vendors that may or may not still be around in 20 years, when the modules are still cranking.
When I was first working towards a cert at SEI in the early 2000's, solar was first entering its current boom, and all the graybeards left in the industry from the pre-Reagan era were ingrained with an abundance of caution from the bad rap on reliability that renewable technologies had received decades before, and they drilled it into us that every array had to just work, like no fudging on shading or orientation or any other inefficiencies. SolarCity, at least in my area, kind of blew that away with scale and connectivity, and started throwing up arrays willy-nilly, because big data could save them on some of those inefficiencies.
But then you get situations like one poster writes: "I found out about the Internet connectivity requirement for the warranty _after_ it was on my wall and producing power - and when you've spent five figures on a system with a 25-year warranty, unfortunately I had to suck up my pride and let it phone home to the manufacturer's cloud. It now sits on a separate VLAN for "untrusted" devices."
I think this is a bigger deal than people anticipate. I think "smart homes" are more of a boondoggle than people recognize, despite a legitimate need for some of that intelligence embedded in residential mechanical systems. And I think we as an industry should be paying attention to this. I don't know much about data transparency vs. security, or open source vs. proprietary, but I know almost nothing I had with a screen on it 25 years ago, except maybe a TI-30SLR calculator, is still working. I don't know whether that makes a worthy design principle, I'm just hoping to provoke more discussion towards that end.
First off a disclaimer. Allot of people may not like what I am about to say regarding comms..
SunPower makes potentially some of the best panels in the world. I have a mixture of E20 327's and Xseries 327's from back in the 2013-2015 days. You cannot go wrong with their panels.
Regarding data connections. This is what happens when you send your data connection half way around the world to get the info from your "backyard" into your house. It is like mailing a letter from your array to yourself in your own home. I have central inverters that have I-net capability, which I don't use. If I want to see what I produced anytime of the day, I simply walk out to my barn/garage and look at the screen. I have a 512MB USB that sits in my main inverter and records the data every 5 minutes while the inverter is up for historical reference. You see, I don't have to worry about what specifications any given comms provider decides to use or not use. They are irrelevant. Kind of like owning an EV and not worrying about gas prices or its availability.
In short, keep your data local. If you have to use connectivity, use methodologies that are unlikely to change or go obsolete. Or you can K.I.S.S and email a data file.
Somewhat ironic I had a random person call me a month ago looking for someone to fix their Enphase comms gateway because they could no longer see any data regarding their micro inverter based solar array, and they had no clue how to know if they were producing power. There is an un-warranted fixation on the instant gratification of seeing your "data" at any given instant on one's phone. How much of that is REALLY necessary, rather than just being a curiosity. And as a side note, the use of micro inverters by solar installers over central inverters where site conditions DO NOT make it necessary is also something that needs to be called out. Central inverters are cheaper watt for watt, more efficient distance for distance (Higher voltage) and handle peak availability easier.
Regarding your situation, if you have a central inverter with your system, you should be able to get a Cat5 connection, RS-422 or Modbus connection for data reception via hard line. Hardline, like the connection Neo needed to get out of the Matrix.....
Additionally on service after the sale, I think you can find bad service anywhere independent of product quality, for anything in the world manufactured.
I have a 5 kw roof system using sunpower panels. Installed 10 years ago and under warranty.
Two years ago the monitor that provides real time data to sunpower and subsequently to me failed. After more than six weeks a totally new monitoring system was installed with a new 10 year warranty.
But it used a 3G cellular link. Well since June when 3G was shutdown I have had no monitoring. Fortunately the power company shows generation is as expected.
I have spend untold hours the last six weeks trying to get this corrected. Without success and to many stupid things to recount.
My advice to all is when a provider like sunpower uses others to do their work you may be a very long time getting any work done.
Be wary of using sunpower. Not sure if others have similar experiences.