Reprinted with permission from 3megawatt:

There are a lot of questions about the difference between a monitoring system and renewable asset management (AM) software. Specifically, if AM software provides similar functionalities as a monitoring system and when to start using asset management software. In short, a monitoring system alone cannot help you manage your renewable energy portfolio other tools like excel are necessary.

The fundamental difference is that AM software helps manage the entire lifecycle of an asset while monitoring systems provide you with the performance data of your project. The data is usually spread across different platforms if you are using more than one system an AM software can help you consolidate this data. AM software and monitoring system software together can optimize your renewable energy portfolio! Saving you time and money. Let’s take a closer look at both.

Asset Management Software

When your portfolio gets bigger and more complex a monitoring system is helpful but isn’t designed to connect teams, automate workflows, generate invoices, perform contract management, task management, event (ticketing) management, asset registration, project performance reporting, and much more!

Your chosen AM software such as BluePoint will help you maximize the value of the data provided by your monitoring systems and manage all of your other AM tasks, like the ones listed above. One of the primary benefits to connecting your monitoring data to an AM software like BluePoint is to automatically view all of your project or portfolio data form one place. The platform will populate your data using APIs that connect to your monitoring system.

You can make more real time decisions when your data is central. This method will improve transparency and save you time and effort when managing your assets. You can then use this data in your AM software to automate invoicing, reporting, and other time consuming workflows.   

Monitoring Systems

Monitoring system service providers offer companies a solution to track their performance based on consumption and generation, optimizing consumption, and monitoring interruptions to your solar installations among other performance factors.

Monitoring systems for example receive the data from your plant via solar inverters. Without a monitoring system it can be very difficult to track the performance of a plant and ensure that the plant is running at its optimal capacity. Monitoring systems provide you with critical real time data and ensure that you have a clear understanding of your project's performance at all times.

However a monitoring system does not provide centralized lifecycle management like an AM software. It will though, integrate with your renewable AM software.

Some examples of popular monitoring systems that integrate with BluePoint (renewable AM software):

• AlsoEnergy

• Fronius

• Skytron

• Meteo Control  

• And much more…

When do I need both?

When you are looking for streamlined management, analytics and professionalizing your renewable energy projects. Using an AM software in conjunction with your monitoring system can be helpful when you are looking to consolidate your monitoring system data on to one platform. Using both AM and Monitoring System software can provide your organization with a scalable solution.  

If your growing and find yourself logging into several different monitoring system software and other platforms to manage your assets, an AM solution can consolidate this data automatically using APIs. Once you've connected your monitoring system data to your AM platform you can view performance data on the plant or portfolio level. You can also create reports and monitor your performance from one central software. AM software have some differences in the tools and features they offer. Here is a list of BluePoint's suite of asset management tools. 

An AM software is scalable because it standardizes and centralizes your operations. A clear and reliable management system will always reduce growing pains and help make your company more profitable.

If you are deciding to use an AM software and you are already using a monitoring system we recommend that you always integrate them!