“These days, solar panels are a commonsense investment decision for virtually any Australian home with a roof and a bit of daytime electricity usage.” – SolarChoice –
One of the reason I am a regular consumer of the SolarChoice blog is the common sense advice they provide to everyday Australians who are considering making an investment in rooftop solar. This choice can be quite complicated, with many options for modules, inverters, system size, installers – the list goes on! A daunting task for many, but thankfully blogs like this one provide a heap of helpful numbers and articles of advice to make the decision to ‘go solar’ easier.
And while one might feel quite accomplished once they have their own solar array soaking up the plentiful, beautiful Australian sunshine, they’ve only arrived at the very beginning of a solar owner’s journey. Once installed, many solar owners choose to have an active engagement with their PV system. They watch the energy generation numbers through their favourite app or web portal (some even go “old school” and read the values off the PV inverter display!). Others will modify their home electricity usage to match their solar generation, and a growing number will install home energy storage systems and say goodbye to their electricity bills (nearly) altogether!
The solar owner’s dilemma – is my solar installation working as expected?
But as they embark on the solar owner journey, many of them are left wondering the same thing: Are my solar panels performing as expected? How can I monitor my PV system’s performance? Are my solar panels working?
There is plenty of reason to ask this question. Solar PV installations can be quite complex. Mistakes are often made during the installation. Trees grow to shade part of the solar array. The accumulation of dirt and dust is common. Solar isolators or inverters often wear out over time. So how can you check if your solar panels are working? Does it have to cost me a bundle? Could I check my solar PV system’s energy generation for free?
Introducing Solcast’s PV system performance check tool
At Solcast, we’re dedicated to deploying data and tools to build the solar future. And while we tend to focus on deploying high quality solar forecasting for energy markets, utilities or large solar farms, we also want to help out the 2 million plus Australians who have made their own solar investment.
We’ve launched a new tool, which will provide you with estimates of the total daily energy generation from your rooftop solar system from today + the last 6 days. This tool provides an energy generation estimate in ‘kWh’ (kilowatt-hours) which is the unit of measurement you find on your electricity bill and in your favourite solar monitoring software. We have designed this PV performance check tool to be very user friendly, so give it a try! And be sure to share your experience in the comments below!
You can find the rooftop solar PV performance checker on our website.
Until next time,
Peace, Love and Solar
-Nick-
CTO, Solcast
in the field of solar radiation modelling and forecasting, and has co-founded Solcast out of a desire to enable others to build the solar-powered future.
- PV Performance Checker - 6 March, 2019
- The important role of solar forecasting in Australia - 22 February, 2017
