I have 28 solar panels on my roof. I used an app to confirm this number, and I use this same app to do just about anything else concerning solar power. Here’s what it’s like.
I Have an Enphase Solar Panel System
Solar panel systems consist primarily of two components. There are the panels, which generate power from the sun. Then there are inverters, which convert the power into energy your home can use. The inverter is the part that contains the brains and determines which kind of solar setup you have.
My solar panels each have Enphase microinverters underneath. Rather than all the power going to one central inverter, the power is converted directly at each panel, so there is no centralized point of failure.
I Manage My Panels With the Enphase Enlighten Android App
I don’t have a choice in what software I can use to manage the system. I can sign in to Enphase’s Enlighten web portal, or I can download the Enlighten app from the Play Store or the Apple App Store. Chances are, your installer will walk you through the process of creating an account and signing in to the app for the first time. Most inverters have a companion app, be that mySolarEdge or the Tesla app.
My system is connected to the internet, so I can monitor things remotely at any time.
The app’s primary function is to give me numerous ways to monitor energy production. The system on my roof is a minor power plant, generating energy for my home and my neighbors. It’s not something to be casually manipulating settings for.
Taking a Look at Solar Energy Production
The energy tab is the one I check most often. Here I can see how much energy my solar panels are producing on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. I typically like to look back day-by-day and monitor how energy production has changed over the past week.
If the weather has been perfectly clear, then production will be largely consistent. In the spring, my panels generate just under 70kW per day. Surprisingly, panels produce the most energy in the spring and fall, not the summer.
When it’s rainy throughout the week, you can tell. The production numbers will dip to something closer to half of what you get when the skies are clear. Snowfall can shut down production entirely, thanks to the combination of heavy cloud cover and the panels being buried under inches of powder.
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Winter is brutal for solar power, and the app makes this obvious. My system generated 1.4 megawatts of power this past April but only 740 kilowatts in December. That’s essentially half the power.
Checking the Status of Each Solar Panel
The Enlighten app allows me to view a virtual recreation of my solar array. This is a section of the app I visited often in my previous house, which we had also installed solar panels on. One perk of microinverters is that the array can better adapt to shading from trees. One corner of our previous array was heavily shaded, so I could open the app to see roughly how much of a performance hit we were taking.
This isn’t something I can demonstrate in our current home. Our entire array gets direct sun year round, allowing for optimal performance. This also means that when I look at the array tab, the numbers for each panel are virtually identical.
Still, this tab does help explain how the numbers on the energy tab came to be. When 28 solar panels each produce just shy of 2.5kW per day, that’s how we get to close to 70kW of power generation altogether.
Is 70kW enough to power our whole house for a day? Hard to say. My wife and I both drive EVs, so our transportation and home energy numbers are merged together. We don’t have enough tools in place to pinpoint precisely how much energy is going where, and I don’t bother keeping track of which days we charged our cars and which we didn’t. Since we live in a rural area, we end up charging them quite often.
I Could Add More Devices in the Future
If I had Enphase IQ battery storage, I could monitor home back up energy storage via the app as well. That would provide me with a few more options to configure, such as whether to store energy for a power outage or to use my battery storage each day instead to save money on my electric bill by capitalizing on time of use rates.
We have not purchased Enphase batteries or their quite expensive portable power station. Instead, we’ve turned to Anker Solix portable power stations and solar generators for our backup energy.
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The Enlighten app could also be used to manage an electric car charger. Or current chargers are not Enphase chargers, nor do they have any kind of internet integration at all. They work reliably and we currently have no reason to reasonably them, but I do have my eye on Enphase’s bidirectional chargers if we so purchase an EV that is able to supply power back to the house in the future. Though I’d probably be more likely to just use the car as a way to recharge my solar generators and portable power stations instead.
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Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus
The Anker F3800 Plus is an updated version of Anker’s F3800 solar generator, offering the same 3.84kWh capacity and 6000W output. This model comes with improved charging, with a new max solar input of 3200W and 165V, along with support for 240V from a gas generator.
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Anker SOLIX C1000 Portable Power Station
The new Anker SOLIX C1000 is a compact yet powerful 1800W portable power station. It packs 11 different ports, 2400W AC power surge, built-in lighting, and more. Charge all your gear or be prepared for an emergency.
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Anker SOLIX C300 DC
The Anker SOLIX C300 DC is a versatile and portable power station with a 288Wh capacity and 300W output. It features multiple charging ports, including two 140W two-way USB-C ports, and can be recharged via an AC outlet, solar panel, or car charger. This makes it perfect for outdoor adventures, travel, and emergency backup power.
Ask any solar owner, and they’ll tell you the app is cool for the first few days, and then the novelty wears off. Solar power has a regular rhythm, and it’s largely only impacted by the weather. Once you figure out how much power your system produces throughout the year, you have all the information you need to see if you will still have an electric bill, how many more panels you might need, and whether you can feasibly power your home off solar alone.
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