Best Solar Monitoring Apps Reviewed
Solar Smart Monitoring Overview
As a solar PV owner, you will wonder whether your solar panels are generating electricity equivalent with their potential. But how do you benchmark your solar panels’ performance!?
The best way to know if your solar panels are generating electricity effectively is with a smart monitoring system. Solar monitoring captures a real-time snapshot of energy production data from your residential solar PV system. The software is now sophisticated enough to send alerts and operational highlights directly to your smartphone to inform you, in real time, of your home’s energy status. Directly to your smartphone or tablet, a good monitoring system may show
- How much energy (kWhs) your home is consuming overall,
- How much energy (kWhs) you have imported from the utility grid,
- How much energy (kWhs) your solar panels have produced,
- How much excess solar energy you have exported back to your utility grid in exchange for net metering credits.
- If your system includes a battery or generator, equipment status should also be highlighted and configured within the app.
A good monitoring system could alert you and/or your installer to an individual panel or inverter that is not generating optimal power, so you can take proper action right away.
A good monitoring system allows you to be the best steward of your electricity consumption, plus it gives you peace of mind that everything is operating as it should day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and year-to-year.
How Do Solar Monitoring System’s Work?
System Monitoring works through a connection with your system’s inverter/s (think of the inverter as the brain of your system, much as the CPU is the brain of your computer). The most popular brands of solar inverters, such as Enphase and SolarEdge, come with pre-installed monitoring software. As a solar inverter converts the energy captured by your panels from DC into AC current, information about energy production levels and power flow is gathered and recorded, then sent to cloud-based monitoring systems and their companion apps. You can access your app's interface from a computer or mobile device whenever you want to check each panel’s production, power output, and performance. Most monitoring systems can be set up with cellular capabilities that allow access to system data stored in the cloud from mobile devices without needing to connect to your Wi-Fi network. As a result, if your home’s internet connection is lost, you may still be able to access your solar monitoring data.
Perhaps most importantly, monitoring software can also help detect problems or defects with panels and recommend repairs to your setup. You can also track historical data from your system. For example, if you implement home energy efficiency upgrades or habits, you will be able to look back and compare & analyze how those changes impact your energy savings, and better predict what you might expect in the future.
Choosing The Best Solar Monitoring Software in 2023
Methods and systems for solar panel monitoring vary between manufacturers and can be included with your solar equipment at the time of installation. We’ve listed our recommendations below for best monitoring solutions.
The type of monitoring system you get depends on 2 factors
1. The type and brand of inverter you use – Since solar monitoring systems operate through your solar inverter(s) (usually from software that is designed by the inverter’s manufacturer) then the type of monitoring available to you is directly dependent on which brand and type of inverter you purchase.
Here are the 3 top solar inverter brands that include monitoring as part of their products
- Enphase, which makes solar microinverters
- SolarEdge, which makes string inverters and DC power optimizers
- SMA, which predominantly offers string inverters
2. Which company you use to install your solar – It is important to understand that solar companies can enable or disable certain monitoring features when they install your system.
For example, Sunpower- the 3rd largest solar installer in the U.S.- opts to disable the innovative “per panel data” feature from the Enphase MyEnlighten App. This is often the determining factor for some homeowners to explore other installers because having access to per-panel viewing is such an advantage. It allows the user to promptly take full advantage of their equipment warranties when needed and to have total peace-of-mind that everything is operating as it should.
Solar Monitoring Product Reviews
At Solar Home Review, we help Texas homeowners like you make informed decisions about going solar. As part of our commitment to providing unbiased, expert advice on all aspects of residential solar solutions, we review a wide range of solar monitoring products to help you get the most out of your solar system.
To learn more about which solar monitoring solution is right for you, click below
Solar Home Review’s Top Pick’s for Best Monitoring Software in 2023
Best Solar Monitoring / Enphase My Enlighten
- Individual panel monitoring – monitors each panel’s specific production data via the most advanced microinverters
- Real-time energy production and consumption data
- Communicates with the National Weather Service – to alert and prepare your home in case of a power outage.
- Manage Battery Configuration with Load Control – remotely turn on or off power-hungry appliances. Save $s by switching over to battery mode during times when utility rates are the highest.
- Off-Grid Control – Take your system off the utility grid to simulate a power outage
- Generator integration and configuration via the app
- User Friendly – easy to navigate with aesthetic visuals and charts
- Share to social media via the app – Generate referrals
- Toggle to Contact your Installer – communicate a potential faulty inverter, and begin a warranty claim at the swipe of a button.
Best Solar Monitoring / My Solar Edge
- Individual panel monitoring – monitors each panel’s specific production data via power optimizers
- Real-time energy production and consumption data
- Easy-to-follow charts to analyze and compare system production and household consumption behavior over time
- Communicates with the National Weather Service – to alert and prepare your home in case of a power outage.
- Manage Battery Configuration with Load Control – remotely turn on or off power-hungry appliances. Save $$ by switching over to battery mode during times when utility rates are the highest.
- EV Charging – status view (with purchase of a SolarEdge EV charger)
- Share to social media via the app – Generate referrals
- Contact your installer within the app.
Enphase vs. Solar Edge Monitoring Apps, Which is Better?
Enphase and SolarEdge monitoring software offer similar functionality. Both companies offer module-level monitoring capabilities, both with a web portal and mobile app, for convenient access to your solar production data across all devices. They are easy to navigate with user friendly visual displays and easy-to-read color-contrast.
The apps are similar in that they track and analyze energy produced, self-consumption, grid exports, battery charge and discharge, as well as load control. Load control allows you to remotely control critical electric loads by turning on and off power-hungry appliances when running on battery power. Both Enphase and SolarEdge synch with the National Weather Service to alert and allow time to prepare for severe weather events & power outages.
At the time of this review, SolarEdge differed in that it includes remote operation of the company’s smart EV charger. But don't blink, we expect Enphase to showcase EV charging in their app soon as they recently acquired the EV charging company Clipper Creek, establishing Enphase’s entry into the EV charging market. Enphase plans to enable bidirectional charging capability for vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid applications.
What really distinguishes Enphase Enlighten from other monitoring apps – aside to providing individual-module monitoring – is that it allows you to toggle to off-grid mode, even while the grid is up. This way, you may simulate how your solar system will act during a grid outage. Also, if you have integrated a generator with your system, you may also configure and manage your generator within the app.
Enphase Enlighten app is the complete package to communicate with your solar installer, Enphase, and your social media networks where you can share production reports via email or social posts, contact your installer for troubleshooting, and even recognize & begin a warranty claim for a faulty micro inverter. All at the touch of a button.
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SMA Monitoring at a Glance
SMA’s Sunny portal presents yield data and monitors inverter’s performance as follows
- Live, Real-Time System Status
- Information on energy flow (purchased electricity, % battery charging)
- Historical power output (day-month-year)
- CO2 Emissions Avoided / Environmental off-sets
- Weather information for system location
While reviews for the Ennex portal are good, the main complaint about SMA monitoring, pertains to issues with their Mobile App. These complaints include incorrect data generation and energy balance; the app fails to display individual inverter data if you have more than one; no individual panel data. This mobile app is basic compared to other apps on the market today such as Enphase MyEnlighten App.
SMA Monitoring at a Glance
“SMA Web-Based Solar Monitoring Display-String Inverter System” this is simply a title for this snippet of the SMA App.
Review of SMA Solar Monitoring Portal & Mobile App
The SMA inverter connects to the home’s Wi-Fi network to enable communication with the SMA Sunny Portal Cloud service and monitor and manage a system’s solar production. In truth, since monitoring data communicates via the inverter, a company’s monitoring system is only as modern as the inverter/s themselves. In today's residential market, we can’t make the case to buy outdated string inverter technology over micro inverters or power optimizers.
Because SMA is a string inverter system, it does not support individual panel monitoring, nor can it compare and analyze your home’s energy consumption and solar savings.
Although the interface is not as polished compared to Enphase and SolarEdge, we expect that SMA will continue to improve their monitoring systems with software upgrades.
Conclusion
SolarEdge & Enphase deliver panel-level monitoring with both a web portal and mobile app for convenient access and management of the entire system across all devices.
SMA does not support individual panel monitoring, has a weaker mobile app but offers an easy to navigate web-based portal for monitoring your PV system’s solar production and CO2 offset.
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