  Renewable energy systems are an increasingly popular way to generate
electricity. As with any new technological paradigm, new challenges have
emerged which are unique to the utilization of renewable energy systems. One of
these challenges in particular is the development of effective monitoring
technologies to compensate for the decentralized nature of remote power
generation. This project details the development of an open-source monitoring
system for remote solar power systems. The problem space that this project is
specifically concerned with deals with the reduction of cost and the use of
open platforms to make solar monitoring viable in developing countries where
both the resources and general knowledge required to undertake such efforts are
particularly scarce.
  Currently, solar monitoring technologies are expensive, limited in their
application, and for the most part proprietary. It is arguable that such
systems can be developed using non-customized hardware and open-source software
that can be obtained and run anywhere in the world. This project is one such
argument. This proof of concept is sufficient to show that solar remote
monitoring is neither expensive nor particularly cumbersome to implement and
thus warrants further investigation and development by the open source
community.
