Hello Grant,

Monitoring of an RE source can be done several ways. I think of two off
hand; A) utilize a data acquisition card which will fit into your PC to
monitor the current and voltage every 5 seconds or what ever you program.
Michael Klemen is our resident expert on this subject and has mentioned he
may share some of his techniques with the list when he has time. B) Use an
E-meter with the RS-232 interface option (one meter per source) or Bobier's
Omnimeter which I believe comes standard with the RS-232 interface (able to
measure four sources with one meter). Neither of these methods contain
local memory so your PC will have to interrogate these meters in real time
to obtain desired data.

Brent Peterson

----- Original Message -----
From: Grant Mangold <inovator@...>
To: <awea-wind-home@egroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 23, 1999 10:59 PM
Subject: [a-w-h] measuring power output


>First question: Need advice on how to (continuously) measure output of wind
>turbine and solar panels, along with wind speed and solar radiation. Want
to
>build graphs to track daily performance of system. Will also compare output
>(what sent to battery bank and when and from where) with figures of
>electricity used. Am told Trace C40s will do this (daily cumulative
figures)
>or SecondWind Nomad etc. Prefer automatic near-continuous data logging for
>download to computer. All advice appreciated!
>Thank you! -- GM
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>You have received this message because you are a subscriber to the American
Wind Energy Association's Home Energy Systems list. To view previous
messages from the list, subscribe to a daily digest of the list, or stop
receiving the list by e-mail (and read it on the Web), go to
<http://www.egroups.com/list/awea-wind-home>. To unsubscribe from the list,
send a blank message to <awea-wind-home-unsubscribe@egroups.com>
>
>