You know, it's going to get pretty gadgety pretty fast. As a business category that depends on recurring technical innovation, renewable energy, is starting to look a lot like the computer and internet space. As it moves from remote Texas mega-farms to our own back yards and roofs, and then to our own clothes and bodies, its going to get caught up in the personnel technology section covered by folks like Walt Mossberg and David Pogue at NYT. Green tech is already a news staple at popular gadget sites like Gizmodo and Engadget. Tell me this new Solar Gateway from Xantrex, announced today, doesn't sound more like a PC than a piece of renewable energy equipment ... from the product site:Product Features
- Can monitor a network consisting of up to 20 single phase GT inverters
- Wi-Fi/Ethernet module with 10/100 Base-T or 802.11 b/g
- Can be configured to send energy and alarm reports via email
- Graphical interactive solar monitoring software
- Embedded web page for configuring the Gateway and upgrading inverter firmware 16 megabytes of storage
