Demonstrating remote area power supply systems on the World Wide Web

One of the primary advantages of the internet is its ability to enable flex ible, 24-h access to up-to-date information, irrespective of the geographic location of the user. It is thus rapidly becoming an important tool for th e dissemination of information on a global scale. In order to take advantag e of the increased accessibility available through the internet, the Murdoc h University Energy Research Institute has developed an internet-based vers ion of its physical renewable energy remote area power supply (RAPS) demons tration system. In this way, the physical site, which aims to inform the co mmunity about the cost, performance and reliability of renewable energy sys tems by enabling them to visit a practical operating RAPS system, is availa ble to a much larger audience. The internet-based site. WebRAPS, contains a number of features including case studies of the three RAPS systems at the physical site, specifications of the components used in the systems and ge neral information about the renewable energy system technologies. It also d isplays historical and real-time data from a monitoring system integrated w ith the largest of the physical RAPS systems. Visitors to the internet site are able to see how the RAPS system is operating, almost as well as if the y were present at the physical site itself. This paper demonstrates the fea tures of the WebRAPS site and discusses how it was developed. (C) 2000 Else vier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.