Fat Spaniel targets EU solar with SATEL partnership

Fat Spaniel Technologies expects a new partnership announced today to help it break into the solar panel world in Spain.

The San Jose, Calif.-based provider of monitoring and reporting services for renewable energy systems launched the partnership with SATEL Spain, a subsidiary of the Finnish company SATEL. The announcement also marks Fat Spaniel’s new focus on European expansion.

The partnership is expected to combine Fat Spaniel’s energy monitoring software with SATEL’s radio modems for use in large solar plants, said Fat Spaniel’s Chris Beekhuis, founder and chief technology officer (see Fat Spaniel adds off-grid and solar thermal services).

“With this partnership, I’d say we’re absolutely ahead of the pack,” said Beekhuis, adding that the competition typically offers one solution or the other, but not both, and on a much smaller level.

SATEL’s wireless technology, hardware, resources and support have applications in solar, as well as other industries.

Fat Spaniel CEO Matthew Powell said the company is using the partnership to try to increase its European customer base.

“It’s a good time for us to have a go-to-market partner that has relationships with these customers. It’s a natural for us too,” Powell said.

Fat Spaniel is launching European offices in Munich, Germany, and Madrid, Spain. The locations are expected to increase the company’s access to local resources and ability to accelerate the deployment of its monitoring solutions. Beekhuis moved temporarily to Europe to help launch the overseas operations. Fat Spaniel is not expected to build a field team, but instead plans to partner with SATEL Spain.

Beekhuis said a massive amount of performance data is generated by solar projects, but the European owners and operators generally can’t effectively make use of the large amounts of data or access it offsite. That data could help the operators detect problems and plan maintenance of solar systems.

Fat Spaniel has focused its products in the United States, but is now looking at Europe because of stronger regulatory incentives that have driven deeper penetration for renewable energy, including feed-in tariffs for businesses and residential to deploy solar. (see Solar insiders lament lack of U.S. feed-in tariff)

“We’ll be focusing on countries where the incentives are the biggest,” said Beekhuis, adding that Fat Spaniel plans to focus on entering these markets through established parties. He highlighted Germany, Belgium, Spain, as well as Italy, where a lot of large solar projects are getting established (see Spain leads 2008 solar market).

However, by 2010-11, Powell said, the U.S. market is expected to equal or exceed the markets in areas such as Spain and Germany.

Fat Spaniel’s traditional customers are the owners and operators of solar electric plants, product developers and original equipment manufacturers. These end users have to manage tremendous amounts of data, and could benefit from the technology of both companies, Powell said.

There’s no time limit imposed on the partnership, Powell said, adding that he expects the collaboration to be ongoing. The financial arrangements of the deal were not disclosed.

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