Demonstrating remote area power supply systems on the World Wide Web

One of the primary advantages of the internet is its ability to enable flexible, 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 the dissemination of information on a global scale. In order to take advantage of the increased accessibility available through the internet, the Murdoch University Energy Research Institute has developed an internet-based version of its physical renewable energy remote area power supply (RAPS) demonstration system. In this way, the physical site, which aims to inform the community about the cost, performance and reliability of renewable energy systems by enabling them to visit a practical operating RAPS system, is available 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 general information about the renewable energy system technologies. It also displays historical and real-time data from a monitoring system integrated with 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 they were present at the physical site itself. This paper demonstrates the features of the WebRAPS site and discusses how it was developed.