Solar Panel Monitoring Systems | How to Track Your Solar Output

Inverter monitoring is the most common type of solar monitoring and comes built into most modern inverters. Your inverter converts the DC electricity from your panels into AC electricity for your home, and in the process tracks detailed generation data. Brands like GivEnergy, SolarEdge, Enphase, and Fox ESS all provide dedicated monitoring apps that connect to your inverter via WiFi, displaying real-time and historical generation data on your smartphone.

Smart meter monitoring uses your home's smart meter to track both your solar generation and your overall electricity consumption. While less detailed than inverter monitoring, smart meters provide a useful overview of your import and export patterns. Your energy supplier's app or the government's IHD (In-Home Display) shows basic generation and consumption data.

Third-party monitoring systems like Sense and Emporia Vue provide whole-home energy monitoring by attaching CT clamps to your consumer unit. These systems track both solar generation and individual circuit consumption, giving you a complete picture of how electricity flows through your home. They are particularly useful for identifying energy-hungry appliances and optimising usage patterns.

Battery monitoring is integrated into the monitoring apps of battery manufacturers like GivEnergy, Tesla, and Fox ESS. These systems track charge and discharge cycles, state of charge, and energy flow between your panels, battery, home, and the grid. Battery monitoring is essential for optimising your self-consumption ratio and ensuring your battery is performing correctly.

All major inverter brands now provide free monitoring apps as standard. The level of detail varies by platform, with SolarEdge and Enphase offering panel-level monitoring that shows the output of each individual panel. This is particularly useful for identifying issues with specific panels such as shading or defects.

A sudden and significant drop in generation output that is not explained by weather changes is the most obvious sign of a fault. If your system is generating 20-30% less than expected on a clear day, check for error codes on your inverter or monitoring app. Common causes include inverter faults, tripped circuit breakers, or damaged cables.

If you have panel-level monitoring, one panel consistently underperforming relative to its neighbours indicates a panel-specific issue. This could be localised shading from a new obstruction such as tree growth, a fault within the panel itself, or a wiring issue. Seasonal changes in shading patterns are normal, but a persistent discrepancy warrants investigation.

Inverter error codes are displayed on both the inverter itself and through monitoring apps. Common errors include grid voltage issues, earth fault detection, and communication failures. While some errors are transient and resolve themselves, persistent error codes should be reported to your installer for investigation.

If you notice any significant change in your system's performance that you cannot explain, contact your installer. Early detection of problems through monitoring can prevent minor issues from becoming major faults and ensures your system continues to operate at peak efficiency.

Your monitoring system plays an important role in tracking and verifying your Smart Export Guarantee income. The SEG pays you for every kWh of electricity you export to the grid, and your monitoring app shows exactly how much you are exporting. This allows you to verify that your energy supplier's SEG payments are accurate and that you are being credited for all exported electricity.

Monitoring also helps you optimise your SEG income by understanding when you export the most electricity. Some SEG tariffs offer time-of-use rates that pay more during peak demand periods. By monitoring your export patterns, you can adjust your battery charging strategy to export more electricity during these premium periods, maximising your income.

If you have battery storage, monitoring helps you balance self-consumption savings against export income. In many cases, using your solar electricity directly saves more than exporting it, but during periods of very high generation and low household demand, maximising exports can be the better financial strategy. Your monitoring data enables these informed decisions.

Weather compensation is a feature available in advanced monitoring systems that adjusts your expected generation based on actual local weather data. Rather than comparing your output against a fixed benchmark, weather-compensated monitoring tells you whether your system is performing as well as it should given today's specific conditions. This makes it much easier to spot genuine underperformance versus normal weather-related variation.

Performance ratio tracking compares your system's actual output against its theoretical maximum over time, expressed as a percentage. A well-performing system typically achieves a performance ratio of 80-90%. If your performance ratio trends downwards over time, it may indicate panel degradation, increasing shading, or developing faults that warrant investigation.

Long-term degradation monitoring tracks your system's output year over year to verify that panel degradation is within the manufacturer's warranted limits. Solar panels typically degrade at 0.3-0.5% per year, so a 10-year-old system should still be generating at least 95% of its original capacity. Monitoring data provides the evidence to make a warranty claim if degradation exceeds warranted levels.