Phone: (44) 07891 216529 Email: ashley.loxton@loxtonconsultancy.co.uk

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Over the past 4 years you will have seen a proliferation of solar farms appearing all over the countryside.  By solar farm, I mean a field covered in solar panels, which look like mirrors, facing the sun.  These solar farms are producing electrical energy which is being fed back into the national grid to help the UK Governement achieve its target of 20% of the country's energy requirement coming from renewable energy.

To determine how much energy is being produced the solar farms must be able to communicate via the internet to a data monitoring centre.

As you can imagine, this can prove to be a challenge in the countryside given that landline broadband to farms and remote sites is usually very poor or non-existent and mobile broadband is often not available and even if it is the speeds are very slow.  The solution is satellite broadband, which is relatively low cost and easy to install.  There are a number of broadband internet providers providing satellite internet connections.  However, the most popular system for solar farms is the Tooway satellite internet solution, due to the excellant maximum upload speed of 6 Mbps and maximum download speed of 30 Mbps.  The benefit of the Tooway satellite internet system is that it will work anywhere in Europe.  You can check this via the following link:-

http://www.satsig.net/tooway/satellite-dish-pointing-ka-sat-tooway-europe.htm

The only proviso is that the satellite dish has a clear line of sight approximately due south at an elevation of 25-30 degrees.

The performance of the Tooway satellite internet connection can be monitored remotely to check that signal levels are above the recommended levels.  In the event that they have fallen below recommended levels the solar farm operator can be notified and a service call initiated to re-align the dish.

All solar farms have a level of unmanned security in place.  This may be as simple as Passive Infra Red (PIR) detectors or a more comprehensive solution combining PIRs with CCTV cameras.  These devices are of course monitored by a remote monitoring security company via the satellite internet connection.  

So in summary, satellite broadband is an ideal solution for solar farms and remote locations that require a reliable, high speed internet connection.

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I knew my army groundsheet would come in useful someday! Attending site to reconfigure a NetModule router connected to a Tooway satellite broadband system. On this occasion rai....

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This Thursday I completed my last Tooway satellite broadband installation before Xmas, known as Cwrt Hennlys, in Wales.  It rained all day!  


We are proud to announce we received our 300th order for a Tooway satellite broadband system today, our 20th from Metka-EGN Ltd, http://www.metka-egn.com , a leading EPC contractor for solar farms.