Environment Times is raising money for the homeless this winter by creating a 'virtual ecohouse'. ASL is one of the donors. They write: ASL supports solar PV at the Commonwealth Games Athletes' Village. Their cost-effective and reliable telemetry reassures tenants and investors.

M2M communications provider ASL has helped tenants in the former Commonwealth Games Athletes' Village in Glasgow to benefit from free electricity.

In partnership with sustainable energy solutions provider Edison Energy , ASL has enabled the remote monitoring of more than 3,000 solar PV panels that were fitted to the award-winning development's 700 homes.

ASL provided smart meters and data services to remotely monitor Edison Energy's assets. Edison Energy monitors all of its solar systems installed on tenants' properties through a dedicated online portal, which allows its system analysts to evaluate performance on a daily basis.

"Other manufacturers provide telemetry, but they also charge you to access the information in a format you can understand," said Fraser MacKenzie, business development director at Edison Energy. "ASL's method of extracting the information is cost-effective and very, very reliable."

Fraser was quick to highlight the importance of this reliability to both tenants and investors. Since solar PV is a "passive" system, the only way to check that the system is working correctly is via ASL's telemetry and software: "It's the critical component that makes sure that the investor gets their money back and the tenant gets the free electricity."

ASL had to overcome the challenge of an area of Glasgow affected by poor GPRS signal strength. Previously, Edison Energy had spent a lot of time revisiting homes in which solar PV had already been installed to adjust the telemetry system so that it provided better quality data. ASL gave Edison Energy's supervisors low-loss extension cables and signal analysers and trained them in how to identify the strongest signal areas in each property. This ensured that the telemetry equipment was delivering high-quality data at the time of installation and that second visits would not be required.

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