MONITORING • TELEMETRY • PERFORMANCE RATIO

Monitoring: trust, verify, optimize

Solar is “set and forget” until it isn’t. Monitoring detects failures early and makes performance transparent.

Solar home illustration.

What to track

  • Daily energy (kilowatt-hour) and seasonal trends.
  • Power curve: shape tells you shading/clipping patterns.
  • Performance ratio (PR): output vs expected under irradiance/temperature.
  • Alerts: inverter offline, string fault, rapid shutdown events.
Granularity choices

Panel-level monitoring helps with troubleshooting on complex roofs, but system-level monitoring can be enough for simple arrays.

Ask how monitoring data is stored, who owns it, and whether you can export it.

Common “silent failures”

Inverter dropout

A reboot loop can cut production for weeks if nobody notices.

String fault

A loose connector can reduce output without obvious symptoms.

Soiling

Dust/pollen can meaningfully reduce yield in dry seasons.

Air quality snapshots by region

These charts pull the latest available city measurements from the Open Air Quality platform. Values can vary across monitors and by time of day; use them as a directional snapshot.

Measurements: fine particle pollution (micrograms per cubic meter) and nitrogen dioxide (micrograms per cubic meter), when available.
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