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Make the Most of Your Energy Monitoring System

With energy monitoring systems, smart homeowners and businesses in Ontario can make the most of their solar panel system, with easy ways to conserve energy and save money on your electricity bills.

What is a Solar Energy Monitoring System?

A solar energy monitoring system conveniently tracks your solar system’s electricity production and provides you with real-time feedback which helps you to ensure that your solar system is operating at optimum levels. Moreover, in todays’ day and age there are several features to consider when you want to interact with your solar system from your home computer, tablet, or cell phone.

The Three Basic Parts of an Energy Monitoring System:

  1. Data Logger: gathers the data from your solar system
  2. Communications Gateway: an information delivery system that provides real-time information directly to you via your home’s WI-FI.
  3. Web Portal: provides you with a graphical interface for you to analyze and save the data information collected.

Do I Need Solar Monitoring?

Solar energy monitoring systems are a smart and easy way to further assist Ontario homeowners in reducing their energy consumption and electricity costs each month. With the information that is collected using energy monitoring you can determine the efficiency of your residential solar panel system. In addition to identifying any irregularities in your energy consumption, so that you can address them within the next billing period. Furthermore, with the installation of an energy monitoring system you can keep an eye on the performance of your solar panels to determine the associated costs for any potential maintenance to your solar panel system.

How is Solar Energy Output Measured?

For every energy monitoring system, there are different levels of detail that are available depending on whether you are using string inverters that manage a group of solar panels, or if you are using microinverters or power optimizers on each of the panels of your solar system. For those with a string inverter system, you can access information such as, basic production numbers for the array on a daily, weekly, monthly yearly and lifetime basis as well as AC and DC voltage. In addition to detecting any potential problems with the individual inverter.

Whereas, for micro-inverters and power optimizing systems, the data provided to you is a more in-depth approach. These types of energy monitoring systems allow you to see what is going on for each individual panel that is installed on the rooftop of your home. In many ways this is immensely helpful when it comes to troubleshooting a problem with your solar system. The web portal will then direct you to a “map” of the panels in your system, allowing you to see exactly where there is a malfunctioning panel or microinverter.

A solar energy monitoring system will measure:

  1. Your homes energy consumption
  2. Solar electricity production
  3. The amount of surplus energy generated is exported back into the utility grid.
  4. Battery charge and discharge power for any system with a solar-plus-storage system.

Generally, your solar power energy monitoring system works to send you real-time information and data to the cloud every few seconds, which you can access at any time. At which point, once logged in you will have access to various graphs and numbers that provide you with a clear picture of how efficiently or inefficiently your solar system is running.

What Are the Different Energy Monitoring Systems Available?

When looking into an energy monitoring system it’s important to note that most inverter manufactures include some method of data collection as either part of the package upon purchase or as an additional add-on feature. There are a variety of energy monitoring systems on the market today for solar panel system homeowners to consider. To note, Fronius (central inverter), and Solar Edge (power optimizer plus inverter) and many others are a few easy-to-use web-based monitoring systems. However, if you are not a fan of what the manufacturer has to offer, there are a variety of third-party monitoring systems on the market as well, for all sorts of special applications that you can take advantage of as well. Some of which are designed with a more simplistic approach to energy monitoring for those who are not as tech savvy when it comes to residential solar systems. While others are designed for more commercial users and still others are custom built for educational or research applications. However, all energy monitoring systems can be largely beneficial if you’re looking to maximize your efficiency of your home. Contact SolarUp today to learn more about the types of Energy Monitoring systems we offer with the purchase and installation of one of our solar panel systems.

Learn More About Energy Monitoring Systems Offered by SolarUp!

Contact the solar professionals at SolarUp today to learn more about the energy monitoring systems we offer and recommend for all our residential solar panel system homeowners in Ontario. Or call us directly to book your on-site assessment of your home’s solar energy capabilities @ 1-(888) 849-0690.