Patent ID: 8289183

Claim:
A solar panel array for use in a solar cell power system, the solar panel array comprising: a number of solar panels configured in a plurality of strings; a number of sensors configured to measure an output of each of the solar panels; a plurality of inverters connected to solar panels in the solar array, each inverter coupled to its own string of the plurality of strings, wherein each string can operate at its own voltage, wherein the sensors are further configured to measure output power of at least one of the inverters of the plurality of inverters; a telemetry gateway configured to collect data from the sensors and transmit the collected data; and a monitoring system configured to receive the collected data, the monitoring system comprising: an event signature recognizer, a trend analyzer, and a symmetry analyzer, wherein the monitoring system is configured to detect events, trends and solar panel array asymmetry and to display operator system status information via a user interface.