  Renewable energy systems are an increasingly popular way to generate
electricity around the world. As wind and solar technologies gradually begin to
supplant the use of fossil fuels as preferred means of energy production, new
challenges are emerging which are unique to the experience of decentralized
power generation. One such challenge is the development of effective monitoring
technologies to relay diagnostic information from remote energy systems to data
analysis centers. The ability to easily obtain, synthesize, and evaluate data
pertaining to the behavior of a potentially vast number of individual power
sources is of critical importance to the maintainability of the next generation
of intelligent grid infrastructure. However, the application space of remote
monitoring extends well beyond this. This paper details the development and
implementation of an open-source monitoring framework for remote solar energy
systems. The necessity for such a framework to be open is much better
understood when considered through the lens of the theoretical potential for
remote monitoring technologies in developing countries. The United States and
other industrialized nations in the so-called 'first world' are likely to be
slow to seriously adopt renewable energy on account of the massive investment
and infrastructural changes required for its integration into the existing
electrical grid. In countries where grid infrastructure is generally inadequate
or nonexistent, this barrier is far less of a concern, and renewable energy
technologies are viewed more as an enabling tool for progress than as a
disruptive and expensive technological tangent. In this context as well, remote
monitoring has a role to play.
