Sun Report

Monitoring your solar thermal system has never been easier or more affordable with the Sun Reports Thermal Monitoring System, available from SHEM. The benefits of monitoring are hard to ignore. For many thermal installations, benefits outweigh costs.

Monitoring provides an opportunity to accurately evaluate demanding installation environments before specification. Pre-monitoring a commercial or industrial site enables tight specification. Monitoring after installation allows fine tuning based on operating characteristics. Finally, “System Alerts” functions provide assurance the solar system continues to operate as intended.

SHEM employs a number of monitoring technologies as part of our test and evaluation program. Some of our monitoring systems are expensive and highly detailed. Others are less expensive but without web-based data access. Sun Reports is the industry’s most affordable monitoring system.

On the left is a SunReports monitor mounted to a cement wall above a SHEM32 controller. To the right of the controler is the flow meter set at the top of the tank. In this configuration, the flow meter serves as sight glass to enble visual inspection of fluid levels.

The Nuts & Bolts of Sun Reports Web Based Monitoring

Monitoring is important. Without knowing the actual production of your system, you cannot be assured that your system is operational, and working to its designed capacity. This Web-Based monitoring system alerts you, or your installer, about system performance issues BEFORE they impact your payback.

Sun Reports Thermal Monitoring Systems arrive in a small box, and include all components EXCEPT standard Ethernet wire from the unit to the router. Connecting the unit is accomplished by attaching the supplied temperature probe to the hot water output of the tank, a temperature probe to the heat exchange output, connect a pump monitoring device, and finally connect to the internet. The system sends information every 5 minutes to the SUN REPORTS server, where data is maintained and can be viewed.

Reading the Results

Below is single day output from a test system at the SHEM factory in Perry, KS. This system consists of an 80 gallon “E” system connected to a single 4’ * 10’ Solene Aurora collector. THIS IS DAY BY DAY OUTPUT! Change the date to see historical output for this single collector system. In August, the system delivered over 60,000 btu daily! The hours during which the collectors were producing energy are noted in red.

Configuring the SUN REPORTS monitoring system is accomplished from your
computer. While commissioning the monitoring system, you have an opportunity to set
up “Alerts” that automatically notify you of system failure.

Included in the cost of the SUN REPORTS monitoring system is 5 years of service.