This partnership comes at a time of rapid growth of the Canadian solar hot water market. According to the most recent CanSEIA’s solar thermal market intelligence report, this market segment grew by 13% in 2009, up to $21.3 million from $18.8 million in 2008. With the number of installs on the rise, the demand for performance monitoring solutions has never been greater. SunReports’ remotely accessible, web-based monitoring systems will provide Latitude51’s clientele with piece of mind that investing in solar was the right choice.
"Customer satisfaction has always been our top priority. By partnering with SunReports, we can provide a higher level of service to our customers, a relationship that continues even after the solar system has been installed," said Latitude51 Solar CEO Stefan Varga. "SunReports allows us to easily monitor all of our customer installations, alerting us to system issues as they happen rather than months, or even years, after the fact."
Latitude51 Solar’s vendor, Regina Geothermal and Solar’s customer Namerind Housing Corporation, a company that provides safe and affordable housing for Aboriginal people, recently purchased SunReports’ Apollo monitoring systems to monitor their new solar installations.
"Namerind is committed to providing self-sustaining, environmentally friendly and affordable housing. We recently installed renewable energy systems on Namerind-owned office, mall and multi-dwelling units and will use solar energy to power homes and businesses," says Robert Byers, CEO of Namerind Housing Corporation. "With our recently purchased SunReports Apollo monitoring device, we can track how much solar power we are generating and therefore how much cost savings we are accruing. The best part of it is that through SunReports’ web portal, we can showcase how much energy we’re saving our tenants by linking through our website!"
"We are thrilled to be expanding into the Canadian solar thermal marketplace and are very proud to partner with Latitude51 Solar," notes SunReports CEO Tom Dinkel. "Latitude51 is a perfect example of the partners we want to work with – a company that values customer and values the quality of products they offer. With Latitude51’s established distribution partners and loyal customer base, we could not have picked a better company to partner with to offer our comprehensive suite of monitoring solutions to the Canadian solar market."
SunReports, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, is a privately held performance monitoring service provider for renewable energy installations in the residential and small business/commercial markets. The company has deep Canadian roots through lead investor Alex Winch, and is excited to be a player in this market. Through SunReports’ cost-effective, ‘ZERO-configuration required’ hardware devices, the Apollo1 and Apollo2, installers and system owners can monitor and verify system performance of solar electric (PV), solar thermal (hot water and pool heating) and small wind installations. SunReports’ web-based data collection, data analysis and graphical user interface software provides current, historical and predicted system performance information, including a unique installer portal that provides an at-a-glance performance overview of an entire installed base.
Located in Southern Alberta, Latitude51 Solar designs and installs solar hot water systems for commercial buildings and residential homes. The company sells its own brand of Solar Evacuated Tube Collectors with competitive pricing models. These Evacuated Tube solar collectors work much better than flat plate panels in Northern climates and can be used for domestic and commercial water heating, pool heating and space heating applications. Under the recently ended Canadian Government ecoENERGY for Renewable Heat program, Latitude51 Solar Collectors received one of the highest possible rebates for commercial projects.
