Fat Spaniel and Meteotest bring some sunlight to solar plant data

Fat Spaniel, provider of web-based software to help companies monitor the output of renewable energy projects, is adding an important data set to its system: Sunlight. To do this, it has announced a partnership that will allow users of Fat Spaniel’s software to view Swiss company Meteotest‘s solar radiation satellite data.

This ties into San Jose, Calif.-based Fat Spaniel’s broader goal to help customers understand how their solar plants and other renewable energy projects are performing. The company’s Insight Manager software already provides insight into the health of individual plants, aggregated energy production numbers, and more, but weather information provides important context, for example, whether a drop in energy production was caused by a drop in solar radiation rather than a problem with the equipment. Companies could also install their own weather monitors, but it’s more affordable to just use someone else’s data.

The roll out of Meteotest’s data (which only lags about one hour behind real time) to Fat Spaniel customers will begin in Europe, the company says.

Fat Spaniel has raised $25 million in venture funding, and says it’s used to monitoring performance at more than 2,400 locations in 20 countries, notably the garage where late night TV host Jay Leno stores his many classic cars and San Francisco International Airport. Competitors include Enphase, which also tracks and manages the amount of energy produced by solar plants.

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