Most people install solar, see a lower electricity bill, and never think about their system again. That works fine — until a fault develops and they spend three months generating half their expected power without knowing. A bit of monitoring prevents that.
What Comes Built In
Every modern grid-connected inverter in Australia comes with a monitoring system. It connects to your home Wi-Fi and sends data to the manufacturer's cloud platform, which you access via a smartphone app. The app shows real-time generation, historical data, and usually an estimate of earnings or CO₂ offset.
The app you'll use depends on your inverter brand:
- Fronius: Solar.web app — clean interface, detailed data, Apple Watch support
- Sungrow: iSolarCloud — reliable, good data security focus
- SolarEdge: mySolarEdge — panel-level monitoring if you have their optimisers
- Enphase: Enlighten — panel-level monitoring for microinverter systems
- GoodWe, Growatt, Huawei: All have their own apps with similar functionality
What to Actually Do With Your Monitoring App
You don't need to obsess over it. But setting a basic benchmark is useful:
- On a clear summer day, note what your peak generation is (kW) and what your total daily generation is (kWh). Write it down.
- Check your app a few times over the first month to see the normal range — hot days, cool days, partly cloudy.
- Set a seasonal expectation: your winter generation will be roughly 30–50% lower than summer. That's normal.
After that, glance at it once every few weeks. If output looks significantly lower than expected for the weather conditions — investigate. The most common faults (inverter issues, a shaded string, a failed panel, a loose connection) all show up as unexplained output drops before any physical sign appears.
Brand-Neutral Option: Solar Analytics
If you want independent, brand-neutral monitoring — or if your inverter's own app is clunky — Solar Analytics is the best Australian third-party monitoring platform. It works with most inverter brands, provides automated alerts when your system underperforms, and benchmarks your output against similar systems in your postcode.
It's not free (around $99–$149/year) but catches faults early — which often pays for itself if it catches even one month of degraded performance you'd otherwise have missed.
Setting a Performance Benchmark
A rough benchmark: a 6.6kW system in Sydney or Brisbane should generate roughly 26–28 kWh on a clear summer day. In Melbourne, roughly 22–24 kWh. In Perth or Adelaide, 28–32 kWh. In winter, expect 40–50% less. If you're significantly below these ranges on clear days, something needs investigating.
Your electricity bill tells part of the story too — if your self-consumption is higher than expected (i.e., you're importing more grid power than you should be for your usage), that can indicate a system underperforming. Upload your bill to GridBeater and we'll model what your consumption should look like with a working solar system.
Check what your solar should be saving you → Upload your bill free at GridBeater