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Tigo Energy, the worldwide leader in Flex MLPE, designs innovative solar power conversion and storage products that provide customers more choice and flexibility. But did you know Tigo Energy also provides industry-leading software solutions? In this four-part blog series co-authored by our industry partner Mayfield Renewables, we will overview the Tigo Energy Intelligence (EI) platform — the most powerful solar monitoring and commissioning tool on the market. What is Tigo Energy Intelligence? How is it used? Why are installers winning more business by pairing optimizers with advanced software? This series of blogs is a valuable source for solar professionals overseeing multiple deployments for commercial or residential projects. Follow along with the Tigo blogs to learn more.
Having a lot of options isn’t always a good thing. Baskin Robbins is a famous American chain restaurant known for offering a whopping 31 flavors of ice cream, one for each day of the month. In this case, having options is ideal — everyone can find a flavor to their liking, and who doesn’t love a tasty treat every now and then?
On the flip side, imagine for a moment you are a homeowner interested in installing a solar-plus-storage system. The installers in your area approach you with a range of module, inverter, optimizer, and battery options to choose from… and each component has its own monitoring platform. You want to track how your system is performing, but you don’t want to toggle between different apps to do so.
The individual monitoring platforms seem great on the surface, but how do you sift through the noise to make a decision? With flashy new products regularly entering the market, how can you be sure your choice is the best investment over your system’s multi-decade lifespan?
The volume and variety of monitoring options can be overwhelming. To add even more pressure, the impacts of making the wrong choice are potentially massive if the monitoring platform fails to do what it promises. Inaccurate or incomplete data can lead to overlooked issues such as faulty diodes, hotspots, or damaged equipment. In the short term, overlooked issues may just result in a small dip in production. But over time, seemingly small issues can fester and grow into larger problems that slash system uptime and elongate the all-important ROI.
This scenario is quite common in the PV industry. Access to granular performance data, preferably delivered from a single source in a user-friendly platform is highly beneficial to the system owners. Installers can use the same data for remote troubleshooting to minimize truck rolls and keep their customers at ease. Both parties want automated alerts if there’s ever an issue, and both parties want to view metrics from all components on the same interface.
In a market flooded with monitoring options, only the Tigo Energy Intelligence (EI) platform offers all the features that system owners and installers are looking for.
Energy Intelligence is an end-to-end software platform used to seamlessly manage commissioning, module-level data, site-level control and monitoring, fleet-level visibility and analytics. EI packages include all the remote monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities that installers want into a single, simple to use online interface. Plus, it’s fully customizable and product agnostic. Every system in an installer’s fleet — whether built primarily with Tigo products or with components from other leading manufacturers — can be quickly filtered and analyzed. If an issue is detected, installers can open a support ticket with Tigo directly from the EI platform.
Having a simplified, automated monitoring solution makes selling and, crucially, maintaining PV systems easier. With the ability to remotely assess fleetwide performance or zoom into a single project down to the module level, service teams save invaluable time and truck rolls. Industry-leading one-minute interval data means that EI can catch production anomalies almost immediately and pass that information to the installer or system owner through automated alerts. Since the EI platform is product agnostic, installers can retain full design flexibility and still offer the same monitoring benefits.
These same benefits extend to the end user, who can rest easy knowing that their systems are constantly under a watchful eye. Tigo EI also includes a powerful monitoring platform for system owners to view real-time production, energy flows, reclaimed energy, and more.
Overcomplication causes headaches. Offering an abundance of options may be beneficial for Baskin Robbins, but solar installers that want to scale should seek simplicity over variety. Tigo EI is the only monitoring platform available today that, when Tigo MLPEs such as TS4 Optimizers are installed in the solar system, can accommodate any product mix and still provide full visibility into fleet-, system-, and module-level performance. Pairing advanced hardware with flexible monitoring software is the chocolate-vanilla swirl that will keep customers happy and make sustainable growth much easier.
To learn more about the Tigo Energy Intelligence (EI) Platform, please schedule a demo here.
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