How to use Solink

Three layers of help

Help in Solink comes in three separate forms. They answer three different questions, so it is worth knowing which one you need.

How to read Solink’s labels

Every number in Solink carries a small label saying where it came from. A measurement, a calculation, an assumption and a guess by an AI are very different things, and mixing them up is how people end up disappointed. Here is what each label means.

• Source data

  Taken directly from a trusted source such as a manufacturer datasheet, the weather API, or monitoring hardware.

• Calculated by Soltis

  Computed by Soltis from real inputs using a transparent formula. Accurate only if the inputs are.

• Estimate

  Based on stated assumptions or an estimation model. Treat as indicative, not measured.

• User-provided

  Entered by you. Soltis has not verified it.

• AI interpretation

  Generated by the AI Solar Agent from the data available to it. It can be wrong and should be checked.

• DEMO DATA: NOT REAL

  Placeholder demonstration data. It does not describe any real product, system, or measurement.

1. Getting Started

Soltis follows one path: understand your home, size a system, choose it, design it, arrange the purchase, then look after it for years.

You do not have to do it all in one sitting. Each step keeps what you entered, and the Dashboard shows which step comes next. Before anything is installed, the Dashboard is a short four-step path: profile, potential, marketplace, designer.

The menu inside Soltis follows the same order as this guide, so you can always find your place. If a word is unfamiliar, look for the small information icon beside it.

2. Analyze Your Home

Everything starts with your Solar Profile: a short description of your home, your roof and how much electricity you use.

Enter your address, the roof measurements, how much of the roof panels could actually use, which way it faces, its tilt, and anything that casts a shadow. Add your monthly electricity use, in kilowatt-hours if you have it. A progress meter shows how complete the profile is and unlocks the next page once it has enough to work with.

Solar Potential then turns that into a picture: how many panels fit, what size of system that is, and what it might produce in a year. You can type the assumptions behind it yourself and watch every figure change.

What you typed stays labelled as yours. What Soltis worked out is labelled as a calculation. Where something needs information Soltis does not have, it names the missing input instead of guessing.

3. Calculate Your Solar Needs

The Savings Calculator is where you test a system on paper before spending anything.

Put in your electricity use, a system size, and what you expect to pay: equipment, installation, cleaning and maintenance. Out comes production, how much of your use solar would cover, payback, lifetime savings and the total cost of ownership, with two charts.

Nothing is filled in for you. Every assumption is blank until you type it, and each one names the decision it is standing in for. That is slower, but it means no figure on the page is a number somebody invented.

Change one input and everything updates. Your inputs stay in this browser, so you can come back to them.

4. Choose Your Solar System

The Marketplace lists panels and other equipment with their technical specifications.

Filter by category, search by name or manufacturer, and sort by rated power or efficiency. Each product shows where its specifications came from and whether they have been checked: verified, pending or unverified. A specification with no source is shown as missing, not filled in with a believable number.

You can add products to a shortlist as you browse and send that shortlist to the comparison table. If you would rather be pointed in a direction first, the AI Recommendation page reads your profile and explains how the options trade off against each other. It is not allowed to name a single best panel.

5. Compare Solar Products

Compare puts up to four panels side by side, one specification per row.

Because every row uses the same unit, differences are easy to see. The highest and lowest value in a row are marked. But marked is not the same as better, and Soltis says so on the page. A cheap panel with a poor temperature coefficient can lose more on a hot afternoon than it saved at purchase.

Where a product has no value for a row, the cell says so rather than showing a blank you might read as zero. Use the information icons when a specification name is unfamiliar.

Some rows: expected yearly production, total cost of ownership. Only appear once you type the assumptions they need, at the top of the table.

6. Design Your Solar System

The Solar Designer lets you lay panels out on a scale drawing of your roof.

Enter the roof size, then mark the things already up there: a water tank, an air-conditioning unit, a stairwell. Pick a panel and place them by dragging, or let Soltis fill the free space with a grid. You can nudge, rotate, undo and clear, with the keyboard as well as the mouse.

As you work it counts the panels, the area used and the resulting system size. That is pure geometry from the panel dimensions, so it is reliable. Save a design and you can carry it straight into the purchase step.

You can also ask the AI to suggest a layout. Whatever it proposes is labelled as AI interpretation: a starting point for a conversation with an installer.

7. Panels and Installation

Two separate things: buying the panels, which happens at the supplier, and arranging the installation, which happens here.

Soltis does not sell panels and cannot take a payment. There is no cart and no checkout in it. Each product page lists the supplier listings on record, with the price as it was observed and a link to that supplier's own website, and says plainly when no listing has been recorded rather than sending you somewhere invented.

Installation is what this page arranges. It runs in order: choose the system (from a saved design or a quick pick), review the itemised list, request a quote, select an installer from the registered companies, then propose a date and time window. You cannot skip ahead, and you can go back.

What you end up with is a saved request you can adjust or show to a company. Any price you agree is between you and that installer. Once a system is actually installed, it becomes the basis of your Solar Passport.

8. Use the AI Solar Agent

The AI Solar Agent answers questions about your own situation in plain language.

Open it from its own page, from the Ask Soltis button at the top of any Soltis page, or from the round button in the bottom corner on a phone. Ask things like why yesterday looked low, or what a warning means.

Before answering it reads what Soltis actually holds about you: your profile, your system, your recent production, your maintenance history. When that is not enough, it says it does not have enough information rather than filling the gap. It is also barred from inventing prices, specifications or measurements, and from calling one product the best.

It can read and explain, but it cannot act. It will not book a visit, place an order or change a setting for you. Everything it writes is labelled AI interpretation, and it can be wrong: check anything that costs money or affects safety with a qualified person.

9. Monitor Your Solar System

Monitoring is where you watch an installed system: production over time, the weather around it, and the conditions that cut output.

The overview charts daily and monthly production and compares the last seven days with the month before. Plain arithmetic, no interpretation. You can then ask the AI for an assessment, which reads production, maintenance and the latest weather and tells you what it used and what it was missing.

The Weather pages show current conditions, a short forecast and air quality. Dust in the air is a hint that panels may need cleaning soon; it is not a measurement of how dirty your panels are. The Cleaning page pairs that with your production trend and the measured effect of the last cleaning.

You can also upload a photo of a panel and ask the AI to describe what it sees, then turn that into an incident report. That is an opinion from a picture, not an inspection, and it will not claim damage.

10. Maintenance

Maintenance keeps the record of every cleaning, inspection, repair and replacement your system has had.

Booking runs through four short steps: describe the problem and how urgent it feels, pick a provider or leave it open, choose a date and time window, then confirm. That opens a case you can follow.

Anything that goes wrong can also be logged as an incident. Incidents are never deleted, only closed, so the history survives after the problem does. Each job stays attached to the system rather than to you. Which is what makes the record still useful years later, or to whoever owns the house next.

11. Understanding Maintenance Costs

A solar system keeps costing money after it is installed, so Soltis keeps that cost in view instead of tucked away.

Panels need cleaning in a dusty climate, inverters do not last as long as panels, and things break. The maintenance page adds up what has actually been spent on the jobs recorded, and sets it beside the total cost of ownership: the equipment, the installation, and everything spent keeping the system working.

Soltis does not assume a price for a cleaning visit or a repair. Where a price is missing, the total says so rather than quietly leaving that cost out and looking cheaper than reality. A price you can see is a price somebody really quoted.

12. Reports

A report gathers one month into a single page: energy produced, maintenance carried out, and what that meant financially and environmentally.

Only finished months can be reported, so the month you are in appears once it has ended. Generate one and it is kept as a card showing the month’s total, the change from the month before, and how many incidents, cleanings and repairs it contained.

Every figure carries its own label, so a measurement never gets confused with an estimate. A report is a sensible thing to keep for a warranty claim. To save one as a PDF, use your browser’s print dialog: Soltis prints a version laid out for paper.

13. Solar Passport

The Solar Passport is the permanent identity of an installed system.

It holds what went on the roof, who installed it and when, the warranties that came with it and when they run out, and the full history of cleaning, repairs, replacements and incidents.

It also freezes the specifications of your panel and inverter as they were on the day, and keeps the old version when something changes. That is what lets you show what was true at a given date: which matters for a warranty claim, and matters again when you sell the house and the next owner asks what is up there.

A passport appears once a system is recorded as installed. Print it, or save it as a PDF through your browser, to hand to someone else.