It’s a question often asked by customers at Big Sky Energy, and until recently, it was a somewhat difficult question to answer. That was until the introduction of Solar Monitoring Systems.

Now in advanced stages, the systems deliver live energy updates to a real-time dashboard every few seconds, keeping household consumers constantly and consistently updated on their solar usage.

According to Stefan Jarnason, CEO of Solar Analytics, live monitoring systems allow you to see how much energy your solar system is generating, as well as how your energy use changes as you turn on and off your home appliances.

Solar Analytics is an Australian developed advanced monitoring solution that offers live monitoring of energy generated and consumed and smart analytics that will assess performance against expected and let you know if your system is underperforming.

Mr Jamason said the best designed monitoring systems would display easy to read live graphs that provide a full understanding of how and when you are using your electricity.

“With live monitoring, users can log in to their monitoring dashboard and see exactly how much energy they are consuming compared to how much they are generating. With useful data, homeowners can align the operation of high-consumption appliances, such as pool pumps or hot water services to match their solar generation,” he said.

Must have features for solar monitoring include:

-A ‘Health Check‘ function that will let you know how your system is performing compared to how it should be performing in the current weather.

–Alerts sent directly to the system owner so that they know what’s happening with their system when problems do arise.

–Intelligent fault detection & diagnosis

–Delivery of regular, scheduled performance reports give peace of mind and further shore up the system owner’s awareness of what’s happening with their system.

At Big Sky Energy we believe these systems are now crucial for homeowners to keep on top of their energy usage and to understand the real benefits of solar power systems.