[ANN][SLR] SolarCoin | PoW to PoS v. 2.0 | Solar Proof of Generation (§1 = 1MWh)

[barabbas]

Happy New Year and Happy 1st Anniversary, SOLARCOIN!

Only current coin listed in THE WALL OF HONOR: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=651689.msg10055393#msg10055393

Congratulations!

[1714911742]

1714911742

[1714911742]

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[1714911742]

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[user_fred]

hi, happy new year all , beginning with this bitstamp lost , once again ....
I was reading this http://www.coindesk.com/avoid-bitcoin-scams-2015/ in particular #2
then i checked on http://www.whois.com/whois/solarcoin.org
Registrant Name:Registration Private

I am sure there is a way to change this. For sure , on 2015, people will double check on their side with what they have in hands.
The previous post is going in the same direction, people need security.
Thanks

BTW, we lost epiphany at the epiphany ?

[nickgogerty]

What's up SolarCoin guys.  Happy New Year

I am looking forward to seeing SolarCoin become a really strong cryptocurrency this year.  Thanks for the patience with us.  I have a question for you guys.  Has your community used some of the pre-mined funds for development?  I haven't followed the thread too closely so I'm not sure if you guys have talked about this before. 

The Bitcoins and Gravy guy hit @CCNProject up on Twitter after your interview, but I think everyone's pretty busy right now. 

So I hope you guys had a Merry Christmas.  I've got some fun ideas in the back of my mind for SolarCoin, but I'll have to share them another time.  Cheers

so far 300k SLR has been spoken for and needs to be paid for development outstanding.  The rest has all been out of pocket paid for in $'s by founders.

[Epiphany]

hi, happy new year all , beginning with this bitstamp lost , once again ....
I was reading this http://www.coindesk.com/avoid-bitcoin-scams-2015/ in particular #2
then i checked on http://www.whois.com/whois/solarcoin.org
Registrant Name:Registration Private

I am sure there is a way to change this. For sure , on 2015, people will double check on their side with what they have in hands.
The previous post is going in the same direction, people need security.
Thanks

BTW, we lost epiphany at the epiphany ?

LOL I'm not lost, just off finding myself. Now I'm going to share something with all of you and be as truthful as possible, you can choose whether to like it or not.

Back in December I felt myself getting frustrated because the new wallet still wasn't here. Even though PoW vs. PoS isn't all that relevant to the mission of helping to increase solar adoption, it's still an important milestone. Not only for blockchain security reasons but, more importantly IMHO, for eliminating our dependence on traditional mining which isn't actually helping Mother Earth breathe any better given all the power it sucks up. I want PoS so that we can be greener! My frustrations at the delay were causing me some angst. I had some e-mails with Josh, Patrick, Nick, Joe about the delay. Josh really would like to get the messaging function to work since it is used to store information on the grants. In the big scheme, that information is very important for transparency issues until the granting is fully automated, so I understood that it's better to suffer the wait and get it right than to obsess about it day in and day out. Yet I was obsessing and feeling negative. So I decided to go inward to see if there were some other fears at play causing my negative vibes that I could conquer. So I began the trek!

I recognized that I had done all I could to get us to this spot and it was just time to chill, yet I wasn't chill. Hmmm... So I reviewed the "data". Josh and his team at CCN are a really decent group and I trust them. That's a big leap of faith in this new world of ours! I did my own version of due diligence on them before they were even approached as a possible dev team for us and it was my recommendation that led the team to choose them. As I pondered that, I realized that my frustrations were in fact based on the worry/fear that, "What if I was wrong?". Maybe they were scam artists and I was duped? Then I asked myself, "What's the worst that can happen if that's true?". When the answer finally came, it smacked me and my ego HARD up side the head...

I actually believed that, if that happened, then the failure would lay entirely on my lap! If that happened, I would go down in history as the one who destroyed SolarCoin!!! OMFG!!!    It was causing me panic attacks, not kidding. It was completely irrational but that was the underlying fear causing my negative vibes. That told me there was some part of my equation that wasn't adding up, there was a paradox. If I had done my due diligence, knew the risks and acted on that then I shouldn't be anxious. Do I trust myself? Yes. Did I trust my own judgment and intuition? Yes. Am I willing to accept if we need to find another dev? Yes. Would that suck? Yes. Would a delay destroy the coin? No. Would it affect price? Probably, but a MWh of solar electricity is worth a helluva lot more to me than a fraction of a useless fiat penny... so I don't really care much about the price. So why was I so focused on it? I'll tell you why, my damn ego was the one focused on it!!! Once I recognized that, along with the above irrational fear, I also recognized I had a choice to just let it go. Trust myself that I did that best that I could up until this point and just let it go. The CCN team will deliver and if they don't, we'll figure it out together. It's not the end of the world for SolarCoin, just another road bump along the way.

And if it is the end of the world for SolarCoin and the world wants to blame it on me? I'll take that one for the team. If that's the worst that can happen, I've decided I'm OK with that. I sat my ego down and had a serious chat and told him who was boss. (Yes, it's a him, how Freudian.) This coin isn't about me, it's about all of us and the world we choose to live in. If it ever becomes about me (or any one person), then it's already failed. We have a duty to ourselves to make our own judgments, do our own research, trust our own guts. I have done that here, from the beginning. I'm all in because it's a risk I'm willing to take. Each and every person should do that and not just blindly trust what others say (including me!!!). But recognize that this crypto world IS a high risk one. Sometimes a leap of faith is necessary, especially in people. If you aren't comfortable with that kind of environment, perhaps ask yourself some questions about why not? What's the worst that can happen?  


EDIT: Forgot to mention how good that CoinDesk article is! While that is talking more about exchanges/companies rather than coins themselves, it's still very good advice. Thank you for sharing your concern. I fully agree that it is important to be as transparent and open as possible.

[LuckyKey]

Epiphany,

Thanks for taking the time to research things, on behalf of all of us. If people thought your decision making, or the Foundation's, was inaccurate or misguided, they are free to voice their opinions.  I have yet to see anyone criticize the decisions made.  I'm not, that's for sure.  And, don't lose sleep over it, especially over the technology side of things. The crypto world has major advancements every few months, which means in 3 or 4 years, the entire technology could be flipped to something much improved?  Who knows, the decisions made today, could be totally replaced in the future, and your worrying could be wasted anxiety. lol

I think the CCN folks are pretty straight-up. As you say, we could be wrong…but I doubt it.

Exchanges are different. As I mentioned in the SLR forum previously, I wouldn't keep my coins or $ in the exchanges - get in and get out! They can be hacked…even if you're a Co. filled with nice people.

Solarcoin - onward and upward!   

[Epiphany]

Epiphany,

Thanks for taking the time to research things, on behalf of all of us. If people thought your decision making, or the Foundation's, was inaccurate or misguided, they are free to voice their opinions.  I have yet to see anyone criticize the decisions made.  I'm not, that's for sure.  And, don't lose sleep over it, especially over the technology side of things. The crypto world has major advancements every few months, which means in 3 or 4 years, the entire technology could be flipped to something much improved?  Who knows, the decisions made today, could be totally replaced in the future, and your worrying could be wasted anxiety. lol

I think the CCN folks are pretty straight-up. As you say, we could be wrong…but I doubt it.

Exchanges are different. As I mentioned in the SLR forum previously, I wouldn't keep my coins or $ in the exchanges - get in and get out! They can be hacked…even if you're a Co. filled with nice people.

Solarcoin - onward and upward!  

I'm actually not anxious now. That was part of the epiphany I had, pardon the pun.

The exchanges are risky. I always found it interesting how third party exchanges managed to insert themselves so deeply into a technology designed to eliminate the middle man and be decentralized. LOL

[tokyopotato]

Thanks Epiphany for your thoughtful post

The CCN team is very aware of the anxiety related to the Solarcoin PoSV wallets.  It does take man hours to make it happen and SubCreative has definitely been working on chipping away at it in these extremely busy times.  It's a larger undertaking than people might think, because it requires a lot of due diligence to make sure everything is correct in the code .  It's not as easy as copy/paste for this transition - otherwise many other coins would have attempted it by now.  I am standing by ready to diffcheck the code and set my Linux box up for testing whenever I get the word from Sub.

In case anyone is concerned or curious, the projects that we have just introduced to our community (TradeManager, fObfuscate) are not SubCreative's projects and they are not impeding progress on the Solarcoin transition.

I can also try to bring in some more developers for testing and helping if you guys are interested, that's why I inquired about if you had any SLR you set aside for development.

[Epiphany]

Thanks Epiphany for your thoughtful post

The CCN team is very aware of the anxiety related to the Solarcoin PoSV wallets.  It does take man hours to make it happen and SubCreative has definitely been working on chipping away at it in these extremely busy times.  It's a larger undertaking than people might think, because it requires a lot of due diligence to make sure everything is correct in the code .  It's not as easy as copy/paste for this transition - otherwise many other coins would have attempted it by now.  I am standing by ready to diffcheck the code and set my Linux box up for testing whenever I get the word from Sub.

In case anyone is concerned or curious, the projects that we have just introduced to our community (TradeManager, fObfuscate) are not SubCreative's projects and they are not impeding progress on the Solarcoin transition.

I can also try to bring in some more developers for testing and helping if you guys are interested, that's why I inquired about if you had any SLR you set aside for development.

I deeply respect the work you guys are doing and I am confident in the relationship. My moment of doubt had everything to do with me in the end, as these things generally do. It's so easy to try and deflect when negative emotions pop up when it is merely a reflection of a belief system we have that may need some tweeking.

[Epiphany]

Thanks Epiphany for your thoughtful post

The CCN team is very aware of the anxiety related to the Solarcoin PoSV wallets.  It does take man hours to make it happen and SubCreative has definitely been working on chipping away at it in these extremely busy times.  It's a larger undertaking than people might think, because it requires a lot of due diligence to make sure everything is correct in the code .  It's not as easy as copy/paste for this transition - otherwise many other coins would have attempted it by now.  I am standing by ready to diffcheck the code and set my Linux box up for testing whenever I get the word from Sub.

In case anyone is concerned or curious, the projects that we have just introduced to our community (TradeManager, fObfuscate) are not SubCreative's projects and they are not impeding progress on the Solarcoin transition.

I can also try to bring in some more developers for testing and helping if you guys are interested, that's why I inquired about if you had any SLR you set aside for development.

As for funds to be used for development, that's exactly what the Genesis Pool is intended for (among other things) as I believe Nick was referring to in his most recent post.

EDIT: The issue we faced in the early months and into summer was that people wanted payment in BTC, not SLR, so we had to finance things privately and not out of the Genesis pool. There is also the 5% coins in circulation restriction that has to be considered. Assuming development work is something that fits with the philosophy, paying for that out of the Genesis pool would be a valid option IMHO. It's just that whoever does the work must be willing to accept SLR as payment and that's something we can't decide, only the people doing the work can decide how they want to be paid.

[tokyopotato]

Thanks Epiphany for your thoughtful post

The CCN team is very aware of the anxiety related to the Solarcoin PoSV wallets.  It does take man hours to make it happen and SubCreative has definitely been working on chipping away at it in these extremely busy times.  It's a larger undertaking than people might think, because it requires a lot of due diligence to make sure everything is correct in the code .  It's not as easy as copy/paste for this transition - otherwise many other coins would have attempted it by now.  I am standing by ready to diffcheck the code and set my Linux box up for testing whenever I get the word from Sub.

In case anyone is concerned or curious, the projects that we have just introduced to our community (TradeManager, fObfuscate) are not SubCreative's projects and they are not impeding progress on the Solarcoin transition.

I can also try to bring in some more developers for testing and helping if you guys are interested, that's why I inquired about if you had any SLR you set aside for development.

I deeply respect the work you guys are doing and I am confident in the relationship. My moment of doubt had everything to do with me in the end, as these things generally do. It's so easy to try and deflect when negative emotions pop up when it is merely a reflection of a belief system we have that may need some tweeking.

Okay cool.

Well, just so you know, I'm now working on the repository with Josh and will keep you guys updated

[LuckyKey]

Thanks Epiphany for your thoughtful post

The CCN team is very aware of the anxiety related to the Solarcoin PoSV wallets.  It does take man hours to make it happen and SubCreative has definitely been working on chipping away at it in these extremely busy times.  It's a larger undertaking than people might think, because it requires a lot of due diligence to make sure everything is correct in the code .  It's not as easy as copy/paste for this transition - otherwise many other coins would have attempted it by now.  I am standing by ready to diffcheck the code and set my Linux box up for testing whenever I get the word from Sub.

In case anyone is concerned or curious, the projects that we have just introduced to our community (TradeManager, fObfuscate) are not SubCreative's projects and they are not impeding progress on the Solarcoin transition.

I can also try to bring in some more developers for testing and helping if you guys are interested, that's why I inquired about if you had any SLR you set aside for development.

The solarcoin conversion has another element to it as well with the solar generation reserves/wallets, as I believe I read that they are not to be staking; meaning when they are brought online (from cold storage or whatever the future provides for securing them) to buffer the online wallets that may be manual or automatically sending out solarcoin rewards to solar providers, they are not to stake during that process.  Not sure of the method, and have not spent any time looking at the current CCN PoSV source, but I'm sure they'll be a few places in the code to delve.  As well, that may add to the complexity of testing, as it should be something that is tested (on the testnet)?

[romeshomey]

Are there any working pools other than http://solarcoin.miningpoolhub.com ?

My asics don't seem to want to stay connected to this pool.  I have tried all 3 of their servers (europe, north america, asia) and my asics will not keep hashing on their servers for some reason.  After a couple minutes I quit getting any response from their server.

[corather]

Are there any working pools other than http://solarcoin.miningpoolhub.com ?

My asics don't seem to want to stay connected to this pool.  I have tried all 3 of their servers (europe, north america, asia) and my asics will not keep hashing on their servers for some reason.  After a couple minutes I quit getting any response from their server.

That's a driver issue with your mining software. What version of what mining software are you using? Also what hardware are you running?

[nickgogerty]

Epiphany,

Thanks for taking the time to research things, on behalf of all of us. If people thought your decision making, or the Foundation's, was inaccurate or misguided, they are free to voice their opinions.  I have yet to see anyone criticize the decisions made.  I'm not, that's for sure.  And, don't lose sleep over it, especially over the technology side of things. The crypto world has major advancements every few months, which means in 3 or 4 years, the entire technology could be flipped to something much improved?  Who knows, the decisions made today, could be totally replaced in the future, and your worrying could be wasted anxiety. lol

I think the CCN folks are pretty straight-up. As you say, we could be wrong…but I doubt it.

Exchanges are different. As I mentioned in the SLR forum previously, I wouldn't keep my coins or $ in the exchanges - get in and get out! They can be hacked…even if you're a Co. filled with nice people.

Solarcoin - onward and upward!  

I'm actually not anxious now. That was part of the epiphany I had, pardon the pun.

The exchanges are risky. I always found it interesting how third party exchanges managed to insert themselves so deeply into a technology designed to eliminate the middle man and be decentralized. LOL

Epiphany, as always, your dedication and honest reflection are great.  Thank you.

[Epiphany]

Epiphany,

Thanks for taking the time to research things, on behalf of all of us. If people thought your decision making, or the Foundation's, was inaccurate or misguided, they are free to voice their opinions.  I have yet to see anyone criticize the decisions made.  I'm not, that's for sure.  And, don't lose sleep over it, especially over the technology side of things. The crypto world has major advancements every few months, which means in 3 or 4 years, the entire technology could be flipped to something much improved?  Who knows, the decisions made today, could be totally replaced in the future, and your worrying could be wasted anxiety. lol

I think the CCN folks are pretty straight-up. As you say, we could be wrong…but I doubt it.

Exchanges are different. As I mentioned in the SLR forum previously, I wouldn't keep my coins or $ in the exchanges - get in and get out! They can be hacked…even if you're a Co. filled with nice people.

Solarcoin - onward and upward!  

I'm actually not anxious now. That was part of the epiphany I had, pardon the pun.

The exchanges are risky. I always found it interesting how third party exchanges managed to insert themselves so deeply into a technology designed to eliminate the middle man and be decentralized. LOL

Epiphany, as always, your dedication and honest reflection are great.  Thank you.

Thank you and Joe for coming up with the idea! It's brilliant. 

[sylph93]

Any news about POSv transition?

[sunnyboy]

Hi all,

Thanks Corather and Mazzaneo for mentions.

A short update on my project called the #solarcoinalphaproject. I promised that the first version would be out by late October so I thought I had better inform about the schedules. I am running behind schedule.
The goal of the project is more of a running proof of concept to show that an encrypted signal can be sent from a stand-alone PV system's API to any required receivers to accurately and securely prove the number of solarcoin's being generated by the system during daylight hours of operation.

0) Design completed. Electrical design and then some tests of the gateway and its communication to the software teams API. Completed. I had some initial road blocks here.
1) Components procured and delivered. So far it also includes a global pyranometer enabling the system to have a prediction mechanism inbuilt based on historical weather data for the location.
2) Weather proofing tested for battery box.
3) Power system DC Wiring half completed.
4) Meeting with software team completed. Understand tasks.

Remaining:
5) Communication box wiring
6) Dry test and link to API.
7) Stability and running for 1-2 weeks.
Writing the white paper (in parallel) to explain the prediction technology, the link to the API and possible further work ( I hope others can pick up from where I stop) i.e. secure blockchain calls and receives because my area of expertise is solar yield prediction technology, solar PV systems and PV monitoring systems, not networking security.

Please note, the system is only a proof of concept intended to show what could be done theoretically. It would not interfere with anything.

Thank you,
-lfloorwalker

Hi All,

I'd like to introduce myself here as a "oldtimer" of the solar industry, as I've been into solar since the mid-late 2000's and installed mostly household rooftop applications (in the hundreds) and studied PV Farms to the bone. So my background would rather more be into the hardware rather than the software side of things, sorry for that. Congrats to those who braught solarcoin already so far, its now time for people like me to put some steam into the solarcoin and create some buzz. I'd like to join in and bring some advice to push the currency further into its development.

First of all, thanks to Mazzaneo, as I've been discussing much with him about solarcoin (I'm one of those 8 investors) and wouldn't be here without him. Having read the brilliant DeKo paper, it seems to me that this cryptocurrency, in sharp contrast with many others, actually makes a lot of sense (and good). So in a word, I believe a lot in this cryptocurrency and the work accomplished to date is impressive.

My concern is Value. Indeed, in order to pickup and move (fast) forward, the solarcoin currency needs to prove that it creates value. You can argue to the fact that whereas fiat ccy is backed by gold on (at best) a 5 to 1 par (ie there is only 1USD of real gold value per 5USD of papermoney circulating out there), solarcoin actually is closer to a real, proven and quantifiable 1 to 1 ratio (ie. 1MWh of tangible solar electricity = 1SLR), so in essence, solarcoin is more trustable than gold. But my concern is the tangible. Indeed, in order to take off, this currency needs more than developers and investors. My concern stems to the fact that, in order to bring attraction to the currency, buzz has to be created ; people have to be enticed to either invest (with a forward thinking) into solarcoin (although there is a limit to that, if it is not to create a bubble) and/or list their solar farm or solar rooftop application through the Solarcoin Generator Registration Program. So in order to take off, solarcoin now needs hardware : actual pv fields or solar rooftops. Only then will it be proven that value is created. 

PV owners should simply register then!

The thing is : it's too complicated.

Most of the folk I know from my generation will be very dubious about cryptocurrencies in general, so why would they actually upload information of their solar rooftop application (remember that they need a solarcoin wallet to do this!), let alone invest in the ccy itself...!

Alas, if we don't have any registered solar farm or household PV applications, then widespread adoption of the currency will not follow (there currently is "only" 50.000 coins out there which have been registered through the SolarCoin Generator Registration Program). So we need an answer to this dilemma.

To my mind, what you are doing, Ifloorwalker is just that! By reviewing this Datalogger concept, you are creating a tool to help register these solar applications and create value.

So what is a datalogger ? Lets get to the basics :

An array of solar panels is connected to a/several inverter(s). Light (photons) activate solar cells of the solar panel which, in short, produce electricity in the form of DC current. The inverter converts DC into AC current and then, passed a couple of transformers, you feed this electricity  into the grid. I'm sure by now everybody knows this.
 
The inverter may be equipped (at the request of client, financing party/Bank) with a transmitter/controller/datalogger in order to monitor the amount of solar energy produced (kWh) and fed into the grid. This datalogger is attached directly to the inverter via an RS-485 (or other) cable. Usually, each inverter producer markets its own datalogger. They can be cabled (ethernet), wireless (wifi) or even remote-controled (with a mobilephone chip – sim card that will transmit the information on a daily/hourly basis to a Control Unit (usually at the headquarters of an Installer or an inverter manufacturer who supplies some extendible guarantee on the equipment)).

I will kindly refer you here to some types of monitoring devices/datalogger used widespread in the market : SMA's (inverter manufacturer) inverters are plugged to a datalogger (the sunny webbox) which will display indoors (on a small screen called the "sunnybeam") or directly onto your computer screen (via the "sunny portal"). Checkout : http://www.sma.de/en/products/monitoring-control.html

The datalogger I personaly like to work with is that of solarlog because you may use it with any type of inverter, regardless of the brand. See http://www.solar-log.com/en/home.html

The information sent to client might also be in an excel file or coded to UTF-8 (I personally don't know what that looks like) or some other code and might display info such as : ID - Name of installation, Monthly Energy [kWh] produced in May, Monthly Energy [kWh/kWp] for May, Yearly Energy produced to date [kWh] 2014, Yearly Energy [kWh/kWp] 2014.

In essence, such production information exists and may be used. Indeed, a datalogger is quite cheap (400-500usd max!) and rather than developing a brand new datalogger I'd recommend checking these out first (see above) to see if we couldn't actually use these.

What would we use these dataloggers for ?

I believe that with the information retrieved from each datalogger, we could ask any PV houselhold owner to simply have this information sent to us (ie : "us", being the solarcoin foundation) and we in turn, would manage the solarcoins for the client.

All a PV owner would have to do is register his solar PV info into the registration program, and let his datalogger send us his production info so that we know exactly when his solar installation has achieved 1MWh, at which point we would credit his wallet. The solarcoin foundation would manage his solarcoins until the day when this PV owner actually wants to redeem his coins (by which time, I'm sure he will have figured out how to manage a cryptocurrency wallet).

Now, I'm sure, there's a bigload of coding in order to setup such an interface between the datalogger and the plateform/interent site in order to retrieve this information (especially that each datalogger might have its own coding!), but I believe whomever does come with such an interface will make it (very) easy for Mr. Anybody to register his solar application through the SolarCoin Generator Registration Program.

Looking forward to meeting you all and the development team,

sunnyboy

[mazzaneo]

Hi all,

Thanks Corather and Mazzaneo for mentions.

A short update on my project called the #solarcoinalphaproject. I promised that the first version would be out by late October so I thought I had better inform about the schedules. I am running behind schedule.
The goal of the project is more of a running proof of concept to show that an encrypted signal can be sent from a stand-alone PV system's API to any required receivers to accurately and securely prove the number of solarcoin's being generated by the system during daylight hours of operation.

0) Design completed. Electrical design and then some tests of the gateway and its communication to the software teams API. Completed. I had some initial road blocks here.
1) Components procured and delivered. So far it also includes a global pyranometer enabling the system to have a prediction mechanism inbuilt based on historical weather data for the location.
2) Weather proofing tested for battery box.
3) Power system DC Wiring half completed.
4) Meeting with software team completed. Understand tasks.

Remaining:
5) Communication box wiring
6) Dry test and link to API.
7) Stability and running for 1-2 weeks.
Writing the white paper (in parallel) to explain the prediction technology, the link to the API and possible further work ( I hope others can pick up from where I stop) i.e. secure blockchain calls and receives because my area of expertise is solar yield prediction technology, solar PV systems and PV monitoring systems, not networking security.

Please note, the system is only a proof of concept intended to show what could be done theoretically. It would not interfere with anything.

Thank you,
-lfloorwalker

Hi All,

I'd like to introduce myself here as a "oldtimer" of the solar industry, as I've been into solar since the mid-late 2000's and installed mostly household rooftop applications (in the hundreds) and studied PV Farms to the bone. So my background would rather more be into the hardware rather than the software side of things, sorry for that. Congrats to those who braught solarcoin already so far, its now time for people like me to put some steam into the solarcoin and create some buzz. I'd like to join in and bring some advice to push the currency further into its development.

First of all, thanks to Mazzaneo, as I've been discussing much with him about solarcoin (I'm one of those 8 investors) and wouldn't be here without him. Having read the brilliant DeKo paper, it seems to me that this cryptocurrency, in sharp contrast with many others, actually makes a lot of sense (and good). So in a word, I believe a lot in this cryptocurrency and the work accomplished to date is impressive.

My concern is Value. Indeed, in order to pickup and move (fast) forward, the solarcoin currency needs to prove that it creates value. You can argue to the fact that whereas fiat ccy is backed by gold on (at best) a 5 to 1 par (ie there is only 1USD of real gold value per 5USD of papermoney circulating out there), solarcoin actually is closer to a real, proven and quantifiable 1 to 1 ratio (ie. 1MWh of tangible solar electricity = 1SLR), so in essence, solarcoin is more trustable than gold. But my concern is the tangible. Indeed, in order to take off, this currency needs more than developers and investors. My concern stems to the fact that, in order to bring attraction to the currency, buzz has to be created ; people have to be enticed to either invest (with a forward thinking) into solarcoin (although there is a limit to that, if it is not to create a bubble) and/or list their solar farm or solar rooftop application through the Solarcoin Generator Registration Program. So in order to take off, solarcoin now needs hardware : actual pv fields or solar rooftops. Only then will it be proven that value is created. 

PV owners should simply register then!

The thing is : it's too complicated.

Most of the folk I know from my generation will be very dubious about cryptocurrencies in general, so why would they actually upload information of their solar rooftop application (remember that they need a solarcoin wallet to do this!), let alone invest in the ccy itself...!

Alas, if we don't have any registered solar farm or household PV applications, then widespread adoption of the currency will not follow (there currently is "only" 50.000 coins out there which have been registered through the SolarCoin Generator Registration Program). So we need an answer to this dilemma.

To my mind, what you are doing, Ifloorwalker is just that! By reviewing this Datalogger concept, you are creating a tool to help register these solar applications and create value.

So what is a datalogger ? Lets get to the basics :

An array of solar panels is connected to a/several inverter(s). Light (photons) activate solar cells of the solar panel which, in short, produce electricity in the form of DC current. The inverter converts DC into AC current and then, passed a couple of transformers, you feed this electricity  into the grid. I'm sure by now everybody knows this.
 
The inverter may be equipped (at the request of client, financing party/Bank) with a transmitter/controller/datalogger in order to monitor the amount of solar energy produced (kWh) and fed into the grid. This datalogger is attached directly to the inverter via an RS-485 (or other) cable. Usually, each inverter producer markets its own datalogger. They can be cabled (ethernet), wireless (wifi) or even remote-controled (with a mobilephone chip – sim card that will transmit the information on a daily/hourly basis to a Control Unit (usually at the headquarters of an Installer or an inverter manufacturer who supplies some extendible guarantee on the equipment)).

I will kindly refer you here to some types of monitoring devices/datalogger used widespread in the market : SMA's (inverter manufacturer) inverters are plugged to a datalogger (the sunny webbox) which will display indoors (on a small screen called the "sunnybeam") or directly onto your computer screen (via the "sunny portal"). Checkout : http://www.sma.de/en/products/monitoring-control.html

The datalogger I personaly like to work with is that of solarlog because you may use it with any type of inverter, regardless of the brand. See http://www.solar-log.com/en/home.html

The information sent to client might also be in an excel file or coded to UTF-8 (I personally don't know what that looks like) or some other code and might display info such as : ID - Name of installation, Monthly Energy [kWh] produced in May, Monthly Energy [kWh/kWp] for May, Yearly Energy produced to date [kWh] 2014, Yearly Energy [kWh/kWp] 2014.

In essence, such production information exists and may be used. Indeed, a datalogger is quite cheap (400-500usd max!) and rather than developing a brand new datalogger I'd recommend checking these out first (see above) to see if we couldn't actually use these.

What would we use these dataloggers for ?

I believe that with the information retrieved from each datalogger, we could ask any PV houselhold owner to simply have this information sent to us (ie : "us", being the solarcoin foundation) and we in turn, would manage the solarcoins for the client.

All a PV owner would have to do is register his solar PV info into the registration program, and let his datalogger send us his production info so that we know exactly when his solar installation has achieved 1MWh, at which point we would credit his wallet. The solarcoin foundation would manage his solarcoins until the day when this PV owner actually wants to redeem his coins (by which time, I'm sure he will have figured out how to manage a cryptocurrency wallet).

Now, I'm sure, there's a bigload of coding in order to setup such an interface between the datalogger and the plateform/interent site in order to retrieve this information (especially that each datalogger might have its own coding!), but I believe whomever does come with such an interface will make it (very) easy for Mr. Anybody to register his solar application through the SolarCoin Generator Registration Program.

Looking forward to meeting you all and the development team,

sunnyboy

Hi sunnyboy,
Welcome to the Solarcoin forum here on bitcointalk. Based on our discussions together I am personally excited that we have a new member with a deep knowledge of the solar industry as well as the people behind it!
With your contacts and influence in the Solar industry as well as your belief in the Solarcoin project we can make great strides towards realizing our ultimate goals and make SLR a truly viable currency!

[Epiphany]

Welcome sunnyboy! It's nice to have some fresh eyes here.  

Great first post too.

[corather]

Hey I just did a search for the Sunny Webbox. That is one nice piece of hardware. If the data it sends can be logged either in excel or some sort of API format, an app would be very easy to write for it. I think floorwalker already has the code written to integrate data from this box straight to the web already, or at least the subroutines could easily be modified to fit the particular data formatting.