Monitoring your solar system

Every City Renewables install includes a monitoring platform that shows real-time and historical production. Here is how to log in and read what you are seeing.

Which platform you have

Your platform depends on the inverter brand:

• Enphase: Enphase Enlighten (mobile app and web at enphaseenergy.com)
• SolarEdge: mySolarEdge (mobile app and web at monitoring.solaredge.com)
• SMA: Sunny Portal
• Tesla: Tesla mobile app
• Fronius: Solar.web

Your install paperwork lists which one. If you cannot find it, email help@cityrenewables.com with your address and we will send you the login link and a temporary password.

Logging in for the first time

You will get an account-creation email shortly after PTO. The email contains a setup link valid for seven days. If it expires, request a new one through the platform's "Forgot password" flow. Most accept your email and send a reset link directly.

Set a password you will remember. The mobile apps support face or fingerprint login after the first sign-in.

What "normal" looks like

Open the app and you should see:

• Real-time production: kW being generated right now
• Today's production: kWh so far today
• This month's production: kWh this calendar month
• Lifetime production: total kWh since PTO
• Per-panel or per-string view (Enphase shows per-panel; SolarEdge shows per-optimizer)

The shape you want to see across a sunny day is a bell curve: production rises through the morning, peaks around solar noon, and falls toward sunset. Cloudy days look like a noisy bell curve. Stormy days look like a low, choppy line.

Common alerts

Most platforms send email or push notifications for:

• System offline: the gateway has not reported in for over 24 hours. Often a home internet outage. Check your Wi-Fi router and the gateway's connection status.
• Underperformance: actual production is below expected for a week or more. Could be panel shading from a new tree branch, soiling from dust or pollen, or a hardware issue.
• Communication error: typically transient, often resolves within an hour.

A one-day "offline" alert during a power outage is normal. A three-plus day offline alert with no obvious cause is worth a ticket.

How to read per-panel production (Enphase)

Open the Enlighten app and tap "Array view." You will see a top-down map of your roof with each panel as a colored tile. Greener means producing well. Yellow or red means under-producing.

You will see some natural variation between panels. A panel near a vent stack will produce 5% to 10% less than its neighbors. What matters is consistency. If one panel is consistently 30% or more below its neighbors with no shading, that panel or its microinverter is suspect.

How to compare to last year

In the web platform (not always in the mobile app), you can pull a production report for any month or year. Compare this June to last June at the system level. A 5% to 10% year-over-year drop is normal weather variation. A 20% or greater drop is worth investigating.

What we monitor on our side

We have agent-level access to every system we install. If a critical fault appears on your system, we usually know before you do and reach out. That said, you are closer to your own electrical panel than we are. If something looks wrong in the app, contact us. We would rather check and tell you it is fine than miss something.