Solar is one of the best investments available today and generates electrical power worth a significant amount of money for many years, guaranteed. Any quality investment will provide monthly or quarterly reports with the performance, finance charges and let you know whether the value has gone up or down. With solar you get live data at your fingertips to see how much power you are making, how much your home is consuming and track the energy savings in real time. Unlike other types of investments like mutual funds or stocks, you never lose and there is never a monthly report with a negative value for a solar system. The sun comes up every day and keeps adding to your always increasing solar fund. That is why solar is such a powerful investment!
Enphase Energy microinverter-based solar systems offer extensive real time and long-term production data (pictured above).
Monitoring of your solar array should be included to demonstrate your energy production and provides the data online so you can view it from an app or browser. Reports can be created to view the electricity produced and the value of this energy. The more advanced monitoring platforms are able track each solar panel and display how every panel performs. Your monitoring can let you know how your solar system is performing so you can see how it compares to the projections and confirm your energy savings. This is the peace of mind that monitoring provides.
Electrical production is measured by placing current transducers over the wires for the solar system. This revenue grade measurement keeps track of your solar energy made, regardless of how much power your home is using. Consumption monitoring can also be added to measure the amount of electricity used by the home. When using both production and consumption monitoring, you can keep track how much excess energy is produced and pushed into the grid. Your utility company will give you credit for this energy, and it is beneficial to be able to have your own data to keep them honest.
Solar Model Example
When you purchase a quality solar system, the owner is given a detailed analysis estimating how much electricity is going to be produced considering where the panels are placed, shading, temperature, snow and any other potential losses. This model is the core of the financial calculations used to determine the payback and rate of return on your solar investment. Be sure to only work with proven solar professionals that provide guarantees and spend the time to create an accurate solar model. They must also include system monitoring to demonstrate that your investment is performing as expected.
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