March 26, 2025

How Denowatts & Portside Systems Are Revolutionizing Solar Monitoring | EP271

Show Notes
Transcript

Today on the Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague welcomes back Dan Leary from Denowatts, joined by Marc Bamberger of Portside Systems, to discuss their innovative partnership in solar monitoring technology. Recorded at RE+ Boston, this conversation highlights how these companies are revolutionizing data acquisition systems (DAS) for solar sites.

Dan Leary shares updates on Denowatts' growth, including their new ISO-accredited energy test service focused on standardized "energy accounting" for the solar industry. The company has expanded its capabilities to support projects ranging from 200 kilowatts to 500 megawatts, demonstrating impressive scalability.

Marc Bamberger explains how Portside Systems, based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has evolved from being an installer of Denowatts Systems to becoming a full integration partner offering its own DAS product line. Their collaboration focuses on efficiency and effectiveness, with innovations like using ZigBee communication technology, eliminating the need for extensive field conduits.

The conversation explores the recent shifts in the solar market, particularly in Maine's CMP (Central Maine Power) territory, and looks ahead to emerging opportunities in states like New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Marc highlights how their installer-centric approach to DAS systems allows for quicker, more cost-effective implementations, which are especially valuable in harsh northern climates.

Dan emphasizes the power of their partnership model compared to traditional turnkey packages, explaining how Portside's expertise in building and commissioning monitoring systems complements Denowatts' data analytics capabilities. This synergy ensures systems are installed correctly the first time, creating a seamless operational process.

Tune in to learn how this collaborative approach represents the future of solar monitoring and how these innovations are helping speed the energy transition across the United States.

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Transcript

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Are you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our host, Tim Montague, bring you the best in solar, batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization.

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We do too. We are here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition.

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Today on the Clean Power Hour, I'm welcoming back an old guest, Dan Leary, and we're talking with a partner of here, of a partner of his port side port side systems, who is a technology integrator for Denowatts. We're at re plus Boston, talking with a lot of technology companies here that are speeding the energy transition. So let's get into the conversation. Welcome back, Dan. It's great to see you. Tim, how are things going at Denowatts?

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Denowatts has been very busy. We're we're growing our base. We're offering new services, where we've just added in an important new accredited test, which is the energy test.

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So this is our whole concept of energy accounting, which is the generally accepted accounting gap for solar. We're bringing standardized reporting to the industry. So we've continued to build our core technology and offer accredited, ISO accredited services. Very

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cool. And I know you as a company that works a lot in the community and small utility space is has not changed at all for you. In the last couple of years, Bamberger, welcome to the show. Tell us a little

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we're supporting projects 200 kilowatts to 500 megawatts now, nice. So full spectrum, we can scale up and we can scale down. Yeah, excellent.

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And Marc bit about portside. And how did you meet Dan? Definitely. So

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portside systems is a small integrations company that's located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We've worked with Dan for a couple of years now, installing the den Watts systems on solar sites throughout the state of Maine. So we've gotten to know his product line, his offerings and his capabilities, along with our site services, we decided to kind of move up to the next level and offer our own das product line, and that's kind of what we brought to this convention today, is showing everyone that we have The ability to build these das systems, integrate them, commission them, and work with MLS team to get the data back to you so you do the analytics you want your solar

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site. And were you working in the Indus in the solar industry before you met Dan Correct? Okay,

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I actually worked across the hall together back in North Andover 1015, years ago. So we go way back, but then, you know, I moved on, and then here we are again, come back together to kind of bring a new, new product line to the industry. Okay,

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cool. Well, I'm just curious what are your thoughts about the way the industry has changed in the last five years? So

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we were extremely busy in the last couple years with the main CMP, DG market that really spooled up. We've seen that kind of take a little decline in the last year, but we're seeing other states start this program up. I know we're talking about New York and Pennsylvania, Maryland starting so what

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is CMP,

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central main powers? So most of our work is in the main territory right now.

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We're based out of New Hampshire, so it was a little, you know, it's convenient, but now we're probably gonna be spreading our wings a little further and move into some other states. Yeah, we're seeing some great things.

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And what is it that makes this partnership work?

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So since we've done so many installs on these das systems, really learned about some of the issues that we've seen on some of the product lines out there. And our idea is to go from an installer's perspective on how to get these installed quicker, faster and cheaper. Partnering with the dental lot system, they use a lot of ZigBee communication, so we don't have to run conduits throughout the field into the center of the solar site to get our pyromaniac back. But rather, we just put the sensors out in the field.

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They all talk to a central pad location. Within a couple days, you have a whole dash system. So efficiency is number one. And when you're working in harsh environments in northern in the winter, it's important to have an easy and

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it's done right the first time. And this, this is what really drew me to be working with Marc's teamwork.

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The typical recipe is get a turnkey monitoring package. It arrives with an electrical outfit, and the next thing you know, you have a thing that needs to be untangled, but when you start with an integrator who says, Hey, there's a better way of doing this, we add in our core technology to ingest data and do testing and things like that, it gets done right the first time because the Marcs' team builds the box. Show up with it. They commission it. We work with them through the capacity testing, and it's just been a seamless project. So we've, this is a recipe we've been building for the last couple of years. It works really well. I think this is the future.

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And before Marc came along, it was being done more piecemeal in the field,

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correct? So and Dan could probably better explain this. So he would, he would essentially ship his parts to another company, and they would put it in their das equipment, and he would read their communication strings for what he can and what information would get. But it really was tough, because, yeah, he wanted to get all the site information.

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Maybe he wasn't able to just buy system architecture, so having the den of watt system be the central processor and really lets his analytics fly.

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Very cool.

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Anything else you want our listeners to know about you or Denowatts Definitely.

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Feel free to reach out to port side systems.

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Or Denowatts to get some more information on this, and we're happy to field calls or or do some

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custom builds. And is that your URL? Portside systems, com, portside, sis, com, very good. And how can people find you? Dan, denowatts.com,

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it's not hard. It's real easy. And we work with folks all around the US. So we work with other integration partners and O and M companies and IPP. So it's very exciting to be working with people that really are good at what they do and can get the job done.

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Excellent. I'm Tim Montague, check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Please give us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify.

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Connect with me on LinkedIn, and with that, let's grow solar and storage. Thanks guys. The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America's number one three phase string inverter with over eight gigawatts shipped in the US. The CPS product lineup includes string inverters ranging from 25 kW to 350 kW, their flagship inverter, the CPS. 350 KW is designed to work with solar plants ranging from two megawatts to two gigawatts. CPS is the world's most bankable inverter brand, and is America's number one choice for solar plants now offering solutions for commercial utility ESS and balance of system requirements go to chintpowersystems.com or call 855-584-7168, to find out more, you.

How Denowatts & Portside Systems Are Revolutionizing Solar Monitoring | EP271

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