Most solar installations come with a basic monitoring app from the inverter manufacturer. You can see your daily generation, maybe compare it to yesterday, and that’s about it. For a lot of people, that’s enough.

But if you want to actually understand your system’s performance, catch faults before they cost you money, or optimize your energy usage, you need better tools. Here’s what actually works in 2026.

What Good Monitoring Actually Tells You

Before we get into specific tools, let’s talk about what matters.

Generation vs. prediction. You should know if your system is generating what it’s supposed to. A 6.6kW system in Sydney should produce about 24-28kWh on a clear summer day. If you’re consistently getting 18kWh, something’s wrong—shading, a failed panel, inverter issues, or just dirty panels.

Individual panel performance. If you’ve got panel-level monitoring (more on this below), you can see when specific panels underperform. This catches failures early instead of six months later when you notice the overall generation has dropped.

Usage patterns. Understanding when you use power helps you shift consumption to solar hours. If you’re running the dishwasher at 8pm when the sun’s down, that’s grid power at peak rates. Run it at 2pm and it’s free solar.

Financial tracking. Good monitoring shows you the dollar value of generation, export, and savings. This helps you make informed decisions about batteries, usage changes, or system upgrades.

The Built-In Inverter Apps

Most inverters come with an app. Here’s the honest assessment of the major ones:

Fronius Solar.web is actually pretty good. Clean interface, decent data granularity, reasonably reliable. You can see generation, consumption (if you’ve got a smart meter), and self-consumption ratios. It’s not amazing, but it’s functional.

SolarEdge monitoring is the best of the built-in options. If you’ve got SolarEdge inverters and optimizers, you get panel-level monitoring built in. You can see exactly which panel is underperforming and by how much. The app is responsive and the data is granular.

Sungrow iSolarCloud works but feels dated. The interface is clunky and the data export options are limited. It’ll tell you your basic generation numbers but not much more.

Huawei FusionSolar is hit-and-miss. When it works, it’s fine. But the server connectivity can be flaky, especially if you’re using older equipment. I’ve seen systems go offline in the app while still generating normally.

Enphase Enlighten is solid if you’ve got Enphase microinverters. Panel-level monitoring is built in, the app is well-designed, and the historical data is useful. The main limitation is cost—Enphase systems are expensive.

Third-Party Monitoring Platforms

If your inverter’s app is inadequate or you want deeper analysis, third-party platforms can help.

PVOutput.org is free and community-run. You can upload your generation data (manually or automatically if your inverter supports it) and compare your system to similar systems nearby. This is genuinely useful for knowing if your system is performing normally.

The interface looks like it was built in 2008, because it basically was. But the functionality is solid and the price is right.

Solar Analytics is the best commercial monitoring platform I’ve used in Australia. It’s about $300-400 for the hardware plus $100-150 per year for the service.

What you get:

• Detailed fault detection that catches issues your inverter won’t report
• Benchmarking against similar systems to confirm you’re generating what you should
• Carbon tracking and financial analysis
• Consumption monitoring (requires compatible meters)

I worked with a Sydney-based firm on a project analyzing solar performance data, and they specifically recommended Solar Analytics for residential monitoring. The fault detection is legitimately good—it caught a failing panel on my system about three months before it would’ve been obvious from generation data alone.

Sense Energy Monitor is more focused on consumption than solar, but if you’ve got both solar and high electricity usage, it’s useful. It identifies individual appliances and shows you real-time power draw.

The solar monitoring features are basic, but the consumption insights are genuinely interesting. You’ll discover which appliances are power hogs and when they’re running.

Cost is about $450 for the hardware, no ongoing fees.

Panel-Level Monitoring Options

If you don’t have SolarEdge or Enphase, you probably don’t have panel-level monitoring. Adding it after installation is possible but expensive.

Tigo optimizers can be retrofitted to existing systems. They’re about $100-120 per panel, so for a 20-panel system you’re looking at $2,000+ plus installation. Only worth it if you’ve got shading issues or have experienced panel failures.

SolarEdge retrofit optimizers are similar—expensive but effective. If you’re replacing an inverter anyway and want panel-level visibility, SolarEdge is worth considering.

For most residential systems, panel-level monitoring is overkill. Get it if it comes with your system (Enphase, SolarEdge) but don’t retrofit it unless you’ve got specific problems to solve.

Smart Home Integration

If you’re running Home Assistant or a similar home automation platform, solar monitoring integration is genuinely useful.

Home Assistant can pull data from most inverters via their APIs or local network connections. You can then:

• Trigger appliances to run when solar generation is high
• Get notifications when generation drops unexpectedly
• Track detailed consumption and generation history
• Build custom dashboards combining solar, weather, and usage data

Setting this up requires some technical knowledge, but there are good guides available for most common inverters.

IFTTT and Zapier can connect solar monitoring to other services for notifications and automation. I’ve got a simple IFTTT applet that texts me if daily generation drops below 15kWh on a clear day—a signal that something might be wrong.

Weather-Aware Monitoring

Comparing generation to local weather makes monitoring much more useful.

PVOutput does this automatically if you enable weather integration. It’ll show you expected vs. actual generation based on cloud cover and temperature.

Solcast provides solar forecast data that some monitoring platforms integrate. You can see predicted generation for the next few days, which helps with planning energy usage or battery charging.

For most people, just checking the weather forecast and comparing it to generation is enough. If it’s sunny and generation is low, something’s wrong. If it’s cloudy and generation is low, that’s expected.

What to Monitor Weekly

I spend about five minutes per week on solar monitoring. Here’s what I check:

Total generation vs. last week. Should be similar unless weather was dramatically different.

Generation vs. system size expectations. My 6.6kW system should do about 160-200kWh per week in summer, 80-120kWh in winter. If it’s significantly below that, I investigate.

Inverter status. A quick check that the inverter is online and showing no error codes.

Visual inspection. Once a month, I actually look at the panels from the ground. Bird nests, visible damage, or heavy soiling are obvious from a distance.

That’s it. You don’t need to obsess over hourly generation curves unless you’re troubleshooting a specific problem.

What to Monitor Daily (If You Care)

If you’ve got time-of-use electricity pricing or a battery, daily monitoring helps optimize usage:

Self-consumption percentage. How much of your solar are you using vs. exporting? If you’re exporting 70% at 8 cents per kWh and buying it back at night for 45 cents, you should shift some usage to daytime.

Peak usage timing. Are you consuming power during expensive peak periods when you could shift it to solar hours?

Battery state of charge. If you’ve got a battery, is it charging fully from solar or are you buying grid power to charge it? The latter is usually inefficient.

When Monitoring Catches Real Problems

Good monitoring has caught several issues for me over the years:

• A panel that failed gradually over three months (SolarEdge panel-level monitoring showed the decline clearly)
• An inverter firmware bug that was throttling output to 80% (only caught by comparing to PVOutput benchmarks)
• Shading from a neighbor’s tree that grew taller than expected (generation dropped 15% over 18 months)

Each of those problems would’ve cost me hundreds in lost generation if I’d caught them later or not at all.

The Minimum Viable Monitoring Setup

If you don’t want to spend money or time on fancy monitoring, here’s the minimum:

1. Check your inverter app weekly for total generation
2. Upload your data to PVOutput monthly to benchmark against similar systems
3. Physically look at your panels every few months

That’ll catch most problems eventually. It’s not optimal, but it’s better than doing nothing and discovering a year later that half your system has been offline.

What I Actually Use

I’ve got SolarEdge with built-in panel-level monitoring, plus Solar Analytics for fault detection and benchmarking. That’s probably overkill, but the Solar Analytics subscription is $120 per year and has paid for itself by catching problems early.

For most people, the inverter’s app plus PVOutput for free benchmarking is plenty.

If you’ve got a battery or complex energy usage patterns, investing in proper monitoring makes sense. If you’re just generating power and feeding it to the grid, keep it simple.

For detailed solar monitoring guides and comparisons, check Solar Quotes’ monitoring section and the Whirlpool solar forums—both have knowledgeable communities who can help troubleshoot specific issues.