How Monitoring Power Draw Impacts Off-Grid Uptime in Winter
When you’re operating off-grid systems (whether it’s a mobile solar CCTV tower, or a remote environmental monitoring station) your entire operation depends on a delicate balance between solar generation, battery storage, and communications hardware.
Within that setup tends to be a remote monitoring system; the “brain” of the operation. It continuously tracks key metrics like battery levels, solar input, fuel reserves, and GPS location, transmitting this data over 4G or satellite networks so operational teams can make informed decisions in real time.
But when winter arrives, everything changes.
Daylight hours shrink, solar generation drops, and energy demands often increase. Suddenly, systems that ran effortlessly through the summer are pushed to their limits and stress tested for the first time.
And a critical factor that’s often overlooked?
👉 The power draw of the remote monitoring system itself.
The very system designed to keep teams informed can quietly become one of the largest background energy consumers, eating into your battery reserves, and reducing site uptime when you need it most.
This article compares three common approaches to off-grid remote monitoring and reveals why the power draw of your hardware is one of the most overlooked, and critical factors for guaranteeing uptime during the winter period.
1. No Monitoring – Running Blind
Without a monitoring system in place, operators rely on scheduled site visits or reactive maintenance. By the time a power failure is discovered, it’s often too late to avoid downtime. In remote areas, this can be both costly and operationally disruptive.
- Pros: No upfront or ongoing monitoring cost.
- Cons: No visibility, no alerts, high downtime risk, delayed response, costly engineer call-outs.
2. Generic System Monitoring – Hidden Power Costs
Many off-grid deployments use a combination of readily available components, such as a Victron Cerbo GX for power data and an industrial router (like a Teltonika) for cellular connectivity. While functional and widely-used, this multi-component approach was not engineered for power efficiency.
Based on manufacturer datasheets and community reports, this typical two-box solution has a combined continuous power draw of between 5 to 10 Watts.
For this analysis, we will use a conservative estimate of 5W, reflecting a common ‘headless’ setup where no power-hungry display is connected.
What does this mean for your 12V battery bank?
- Over a single 24-hour period, this setup consumes approximately 10 Ah of battery capacity.
- Over a week, that’s 70 Ah drained from your battery, just for monitoring.
During the low-light days of winter, this constant drain along with your other critical equipment is often more than your solar panels can replenish, creating a daily energy deficit.
- Pros: Readily available components, good integration with Victron Energy systems.
- Cons: High power consumption and multiple points of failure.
3. Low Power System Monitoring – The Insytly IY-HUB2
The Insytly IY-HUB2 is a single, integrated unit engineered from the ground up for one purpose: maximum visibility into off-grid systems with minimal power consumption. It combines cellular connectivity, GPS, and power data integrations into one device.
The IY-HUB2 has a continuous power draw of between 0.06 to 0.14 Watts.
What does this mean for your 12V battery bank?
- Over a single 24-hour period, this setup consumes only ~0.2 Ah of battery capacity.
- Over a week, that’s less than 1.5 Ah drained from your battery in total.
This low power consumption preserves your battery reserves for your essential equipment, dramatically extending site uptime in comparison.
- Pros: Low power consumption, single all-in-one unit, direct integrations with power systems (Victron Energy or Efoy fuel cells).
- Cons: Purpose-built hardware, requires initial setup.
A Real-World Example: An Analysis for a Solar CCTV Tower
To understand the difference in a real-world scenario, let’s analyse a common, high-performance solar CCTV tower. These are used on construction sites and for critical infrastructure across the UK and Europe.
- Solar Panels: 440W Array
- Battery Bank: 2x 200Ah Lithium Batteries (400Ah total @ 12V = 4.8 kWh usable)
- Essential Loads: 4K cameras, NVR, audio horn, 4G/5G communications, sensors.
The Comparison: Three System Monitoring Scenarios Over Winter
The scenarios below compare the energy consumed just by the monitoring hardware over a 30-day period.
| Scenario | Daily Monitoring Load (Wh) | Monthly Power Draw from Monitoring System (Wh) | Impact on a 4.8kWh Battery Bank over a Month |
| No Monitoring System | 0Wh | 0Wh | You only discover problems (battery underperformance, panel issues, generator failing) via site visits or after failure. High risk of unexpected downtime. |
| Common Monitoring System (e.g. Victron Cerbo + Teltonika combo) | ~120 Wh/day (avg. 5W power draw) | ~3.6 kWh (average) | Consumes 75% of the battery’s entire capacity over a month. Adds to generator / fuel cell usage in winter when there is limited solar to charge batteries. |
| Low-Power Monitoring System (e.g., Insytly IY-HUB2) | ~2.4 Wh / day (avg. 0.1W power draw) | ~0.07 kWh (average) | Under the same conditions, consumes less than 2% of the battery’s capacity. |
What This Means in Practice
- In “no monitoring” set-ups, issues are often detected too late, leading to significant downtime and expensive emergency engineer call-outs.
- Common remote monitoring setups may see losses of 3.6 kWh/month simply from monitoring overhead. That erodes your “safety margin” (battery reserve) significantly over time.
- That safety margin is what keeps sites operational when solar yields drop. If this is eroded earlier than expected it can lead to generator/fuel cell runs, battery swaps, and more site visits.
- With a low-power consuming monitoring solution, like Insytly, your battery reserves are preserved for core loads, such as cameras and comms.
- With the remote control aspects of the IY-HUB2 other non-essential loads in the tower can also be remotely switched on/off during the winter months to preserve critical power for longer.
A single callout to swap a battery can easily cost over £200 in engineer time, fuel, and vehicle wear.
Preventing just one of these trips pays for the Insytly monitoring solution itself.
Plan for Winter, Not Just Summer
Many off-grid systems are specified in ideal summer conditions, but the real test is in winter.
If your current remote monitoring setup is draining your battery faster than you expected, it’s time to rethink how you monitor your off-grid systems to prevent costly downtime.
