Solar Edge app vs Tesla app

[vickh]

Worth installing Solar Edge app? What would I gain over Tesla app

 

[Troglodytes]

Worth it? Probably not for most people. If you are interested in data for the sake of data and are a glutton for punishment then maybe. You would get some panel (power optimizer) level data that would aid in knowing your panel health (degradation and shading) mostly.



There are several SolarEdge apps, but I'm going to assume your question is aimed at the monitoring aspect of the existing SolarEdge apps/tools/websites versus the Tesla app.

I have four SolarEdge apps installed: mySolarEdge (site owners), SolarEdge (being retired?), SetApp (inverter commissioning tool; requires installer account to be fully useful; view only otherwise), and SiteMapper (installer tool to help with layouts and getting information to the monitoring tool). There is also a monitoring.solaredge.com website too. A lot of overlap between these apps/tools/whatever.

Tesla support told me recently on a related support call to your question that they believe their app to be more accurate than the SolarEdge monitoring app/tools/website.

Tesla support staff don't use the SolarEdge tools at all per the support representative I was speaking with. They have no access to them. However, I have also had Tesla support add my access to my SolarEdge site and change my SolarEdge user level too. (So, someone at Tesla has access to the SolarEdge monitoring pages or they send a request over to SolarEdge support.)

Getting the SolarEdge monitoring working with Tesla's help on a recent install is a near impossibility from what I've seen on this forum so far. My personal experience is that the Tesla install team registered one inverter out of two, none of the power optimizers, and did zero of the layout work in the SolarEdge monitoring system.

Further, Tesla appears to have intentionally or unintentionally blocked data from the SolarEdge inverters from being transmitted via ZigBee to the Tesla GWY10 (flat blackbox connected to your home network) to the Internet to the SolarEdge monitoring service. This reportedly happened in February this year.

Getting the SolarEdge monitoring working after a Tesla install without substantive Tesla help appears to be possible, but takes some phone calls and extra work by the owner.

People that have access to the SolarEdge monitoring service state that they get access to per panel performance data from the associated power optimizers. The data also reportedly provides information to arrive at loss that happens as a result of the inverters. And, most often, people use the data to look for panel shading issues (tree, dirt, etc.) and dead optimizers.

I hope the above helps.

 

[ArizonaJon]

The main advantage is monitoring individual PV panels. Also you can view it on a computer with a large screen.