Customer case: Kemkens restores solar monitoring

The case at a glance

• Client: a housing association with collective solar panels on several apartment buildings.
• Installer: Kemkens, responsible for replacing and installing the components on site.
• Challenge: the monitoring platform shut down, so the yield could no longer be tracked.
• Approach: replacing the old meter, communication module and CT clamps with a single smart meter with 4G, connected to Enny.
• Result: one meter instead of several separate components, and renewed insight into the yield of all installations.

The background: the monitoring platform shuts down

The housing association has collective solar panels on several apartment buildings. The electricity they generate powers shared facilities in and around the buildings, such as lighting in communal areas, heat pumps and other installations. A properly working solar installation therefore contributes directly to the energy supply of those shared spaces.

The yield of these installations was monitored remotely through an external monitoring platform. When that platform shut down in 2026, that visibility was lost. Faults or a drop in yield could no longer be seen. A faulty inverter can then go unnoticed for a long time.

The housing association is not required to monitor the installations. Even so, it wanted to keep doing so. Housing associations often have different brands and generations of inverters side by side. The starting point was therefore a single overview of all installations, with clear fault alerts. That way, service and maintenance can be scheduled in good time.

The old situation

The installations were not all set up in the same way. At some sites, the metering was located in the meter room of the apartment building. At other sites, a separate cabinet with the metering and communication equipment hung next to the inverter setup.

In both situations, the setup consisted of several separate components. The yield was measured with a 3-phase kWh meter. A separate communication module with a GSM connection sent the data to the platform. At some sites, CT clamps were also needed and an external cabinet with a solar splitter was installed. That added up to a lot of components for a single task: measuring and reporting the yield. And it was precisely that communication that no longer worked now that the old platform had shut down.

The approach: replacing the meter and communication

To restore monitoring, the PV installation itself was kept in place. Only the meter and the communication equipment needed replacing. Kemkens chose the Xemex CompactIQ for this: a DIN-rail smart meter that combines metering and communication in a single module. [CHECK: explain why CompactIQ rather than kWhIQ]

The CompactIQ contains an MID-certified energy meter and a built-in eSIM with a 4G connection. No internet connection from the building is needed: the Enny Platform retrieves the metering data from the meter via 4G. CT clamps are no longer required. As a single meter type for both single-phase and three-phase connections, the CompactIQ can be used with different grid connections. At this housing association, all sites had a three-phase connection.