As we listen to our customers tell me what they love about their solar installations, one of the things that makes them most satisfied is having a clear idea of how their house uses energy via leading edge Solar Monitoring technology.  It makes them feel proud of their invested dollars and being a savvy homeowner.

What is solar monitoring?

Solar monitoring is a term that refers to making certain that your solar panels are working properly by tracking the power output of your system. With solar monitoring, you gain 24/7 peace of mind that your panels are working as efficiently as possible.

Importantly, you’ll also gain the ability to view how much money your solar system is actually saving you in energy costs. Solar monitoring gives you real-time visibility into the number of kilowatt hours of electricity your solar panels are producing at any given moment in time.  

In short, a solar monitoring system can help make you more aware of your solar system’s performance. It offers information about energy consumption and generation, optimizing energy usage, and damage to your solar system, among other topics.  It’s important to monitor your solar setup in some manner – without monitoring, it can be difficult to figure out if your solar panels are operating at their best.

Why is solar monitoring important and how does it work?

Household solar monitoring systems change the abstracts of power generation and consumption into graphics and numbers you can scroll through on an app. Hardware connected to your meter gathers and sends data to a software program. The program translates the information into how much power your solar panels are generating and where it’s going.  

Tracking energy consumption with specificity can help you to determine which appliances might need updating or other adjustments you can make to reduce your monthly bill, right down to whether you left the curling iron on this morning.

In nitty gritty detail:  Solar monitoring systems operate through your solar system’s inverter(s).  As your solar inverter converts DC current into AC current for use in your home, information about power levels and production is collected and sent to cloud-based monitoring systems and their companion apps. Homeowners can access this information several ways, including through mobile apps and paired smart home devices. Some monitoring systems offer on-site monitoring as well, and wire information from the inverters directly to a monitoring device on your property.

Most monitoring systems can be setup to have cellular capabilities, allowing you to access system data stored in the cloud from mobile devices without needing to connect to your WiFi network. As a result, if your personal internet connection is lost, you may still be able to access your solar monitoring system.

What is the best solar monitoring app?

As more and more consumers invest in smart home technology, the desire for a great way to monitor power usage will grow.  (Driving this demand will be an urgent desire to find alternatives to rapidly rising power bills.)

Our friends at PickMySolar evaluate a few of the options and weigh a system based on the following attributes – Price (Solar-Compatible), Mobile App, Web Dashboard, Individual Device Detection, Smart-Device Compatible, Data Storage.

They have picked out the leading offerings and give their analysis, but a monitoring app does not work in isolation — it should be very closely tied to the entire solar system desired.

Solar Monitoring and Smart Solar?

Smart Solar starts before you’ve had to make your decision about going solar.  

Whether or not you’ve made the decision to go solar, knowing exactly where your electricity is used can help you save on energy bills by identifying areas to lower your consumption.   As mentioned above, a monitoring system will often help paint a picture of the areas and hours where you use power – giving you the choice to change habits you didn’t know you had.

SmartSolar begins knowing what you need power for.  SmartSolar when you know what you need to know to get the right amount of solar.

Our founders have long experience in the industry and felt it was very poor practice to load up a rooftop with more than the homeowner needed.   Our philosophy is to provide not only the best quality solar panels, but the highest quality in solar monitoring technology from the very beginning.

Hopefully this explanation helped to shine light on this topic – and if you’d like to sit back and watch our solar monitoring technology in action, please check out this video.