How to effectively monitor a PV system - accuracy of Solar Analytics performance modelling algorithms

Less than 1% of the 1.2 million PV systems in Australia have effective monitoring. To determine how well a PV system is performing, a comparison between actual energy generation and the theoretical energy generation under the same weather conditions is required. The reliability of such monitoring tools is dependent on the accuracy of the algorithms used to model the theoretical performance of the PV system and the inputs for the models. This paper firstly presents a summary and validation of the prediction algorithm, then provides a real world comparison between the modelling results from the Stage 2 Solar Analytics algorithms and the measured performance of seventeen PV systems across Sydney.