Patent ID: 8386197

Claim:
A method for operating a solar thermal system, the method comprising: providing a photovoltaic apparatus comprising a first electrical member and a second electrical member; providing a solar thermal apparatus coupled to the photovoltaic apparatus, the solar thermal apparatus comprising flow region having a first measurement region and a second measurement region, the first measurement region being configured by a spatial distance to the second measurement region; providing a controller coupled with both the photovoltaic apparatus and the solar thermal apparatus, the controller comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium containing one or more computer instructions stored therein; capturing electrical information associated with operation of the photovoltaic apparatus using the controller, the electrical information being derived from the first electrical member and the second electrical member; capturing thermal information associated with operation of the solar thermal apparatus using the controller, the thermal information being derived from the first measurement region and the second measurement region; processing the electrical information using the one or more computer instructions to associate the electrical information against one or more electrical parameters in a common metric; processing the thermal information using the one or more computer instructions to associate the thermal information against one or more thermal parameters in the common metric; validating the electrical information against the one or more electrical parameters using the one or more computer instructions for statistical analysis of the common metric; validating the thermal information against the one or more thermal parameters using the one or more computer instructions for statistical analysis of the common metric; and using the validated thermal information and/or the validated electrical information to detect failure or inconsistency of operations of the photovoltaic apparatus and/or the solar thermal apparatus.