SolarBC is a non-profit organization, a project of the BC Sustainable Energy Association. It's mandate is to accelerate the deployment of solar hot water systems throughout BC. It has tackled administrative and bureaucratic barriers and has administered a series of government grants to assist homeowners in the upfront costs of a solar hot water system.

Part of the program is to audit the performance of solar hot water systems to answer the question of exactly how much energy does a solar hot water system save?

Energy Alternatives was awarded the contract to design and deploy a custom universal metering system that will work on any solar thermal system regardless of manufacturer. Currently approximately 15 monitoring systems have been installed throughout BC.

The datalogging system tracks: Hot water consumed net, outside temperature, solar radiation, incoming water temperature, solar collector output temperature, and the input energy for the gas or electric backup heater. Data is transmitted via internet to EA's database servers, allowing for further analysis and eventual live-streaming to the SolarBC website.