Starting a new thread as this was getting lost in the Hints, Tips & Troubleshooting thread.
Post details of your integration with Home Assistant etc.
I did a lot of research about the different power monitoring options, there is a number of options the TLDR is I went for the Emporia Smart Home Energy Monitor with 18 CT clamps, but everyone might pick a different options for different reasons that work best for them.
Emporia Smart Home Energy Monitor - this is what I ordered just the other day waiting on delivery, it has CT clamps for two main supply (only need one in IE) and 16 small 50amp ct clamps for each circuit, down side is the space needed and the number of wires, it connects to a cloud service for the data which i don't like but people have gotten ESPhome and home assistant to work with it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Jv4nO9OWg) you can pull the data from the cloud to home assistant as well. I might move it to fully local at a later date.
I have it linked to my Home Assistant with the data in InfluxDB and Grafana for visualizing the data, it works home assistant Energy with the integration in the home assistant HACS
there is 3 options- main supply only, main and 8 CT clamps, main and 16 clamps
cost - €80-180
Shelly - I like Shelly stuff but the power monitor is a bit limited unless you buy a lot of them making the cost quite high and you then end up with a lot of them to fit in the box, it seems to be designed to just monitor the main incoming supply from what I have seen. (I know it can monitor any supply but it starts to cost a lot)
cost €50-500
Sense - again it just uses two CT clamps on the main supply (USA two for split supply, one in UK), they then use "AI" to identify what is using power, reviews are mixed on how well it works. issues with picking up things that stay powered all the time and things that might use different levels of power at different times. although it would need less space to setup
cost €300+
ESPhome - very DIY and very cool but takes a lot more setup also to get 18 clamps like the Emporia it's expensive but it's total local and will give some more info i think at a faster poll rate if you want it.
cost - €80-500 depending on what you buy, shipping, import etc.
ESPhome website - https://esphome.io/index.html#
shop for power parts - https://circuitsetup.us/product-category/power-management/
Thanks for the reply. I figured it out when I read that some CT clamps can detect direction of current flow.
I used to have something similar to an owl years ago, which was great. It stopped working after a few years though.
I guess the Shelly reads the voltage from it's own power connection to get an accurate reading of power.
Same here but grant rules are grant rules!
Shelly will give a reading by using a Current Transformer (CT) when that is clipped around a live wire, the power going through it will generate a small current in the CT. That then can be measured. If the Voltage is known then a exact power value can be obtained.
If its completely wireless (like the first OWL monitors) it only can guess the voltage( eg 230V) to calculate the power value.
I didn't see the point of a check meter if the inverter gave an output reading.
Nah, this system is from 2016. It was a new build so no SEAI grant available. A friend recently got a system specced for SEAI grant though, and it just came with a check meter for the fuse board. No ct clamp that feeds readings to the inverter. His meter runs in reverse when he feeds back to the grid though, which is the ideal situation.
I trust you when you say the Shelly will give me the information, I just want to know how it calculates it.
EDIT: Just found information online that says a CT clamp can detect direction of energy flow. So that answers that!
Mine was seai grant, the meter for the grant just measures the power out of the inverter.
Mine doesn't have any CT measuring the grid. Only hybrid inverters need to monitor the grid.
I do have my own monitoring using cts on the grid, battery and solar.
That doesn't sound right, pretty sure all inverters installed to SEAI spec must have a separate meter with a CT clamp that reads the grid and then you will have all these values.
Is this a diy job?
If you simply want to know which way the energy flows and how much energy is flowing then yes the shelly will give you that, - value when exporting and + value when importing
My inverter just shows me how much is generated by my PV panels. It doesn't measure anything else.
I've used a fluke clamp meter on my fuse board, and it just reads the energy on the cable between the fuse board to the meter. It doesn't register which way the energy is flowing.
For example, if my PV is generating 1kw but my appliances are drawing 3kw, clamp meter will register 2kw (incoming). So I'll be paying for 2kwhr if running like this for an hour.
If my PV is generating 3kw, but appliances only using 1kw, clamp meter will still register 2kw (outgoing), but meter will stay on same reading, as PV is feeding back to the grid.
Well technically I have 2 CTs on my mains feed, one for the PV and one is the shelly EM.
How do you mean you don't know what you used, surely in the app of your inverter you can see the breakdown?
If you use home assistant you can create two meter sensors for the shelly and when importing it increases the import sensor and when exporting the export one.
The shelly won't help you see the "usage" of your house because if PV/battery is providing power then the shelly would not see that because as far at it knows the grid is not being used.
You could get multiple EMs and put CTs on your sockets mcb, cooker, immersion, lights, etc and that will get you readings for those circuits.
So have you just got the two CTs on your PV output and then your EV charger? Don't you need a CT to measure the usage of your house energy demand?
As my surplus goes to the grid, how do I know how much surplus is going to the grid, while I'm also using some of the PV energy on my house appliances?
I generated 9 kwhr yesterday, but i've no real way of knowing how much of that offset my usage, and how much just went back to the grid. If you get me.
I have a 6kW Solis hybrid inverter and the readings don't look accurate. I am polling the inverter every second over RS485.
Modbus registers:
Solar Generation - 33080
House Load - 33147
Power to Grid - 33131
Battery Power - 33150
The values go into the - so you'll see -3000 when you're exporting 3000w otherwise they stay in the + when importing.
Something like this:
The EM can give you two readings from two CTs so I just put the second one on the EV charger cable to measure what I'm putting into that because why not. Maybe I'll put them on all circuits eventually 😁
I'm thinking of getting the Shelly system as well, so I know how much I'm actually exporting/losing to the grid. Might be a stupid question, but how does it know that I'm exporting energy vs importing and using my PV to service demand?
I was wondering about using a second one at at different location, and was wondering if the info would work without a constant wifi connection, but I see it stores 365 days worth of data.
Got them to agree to do it, now trying to get them to not charge me for it, a slow and painful battle...
Have you had any joy with getting them to switch to the d/n meter?
Yeah I have seen various pulse readers around including diy versions using esp boards when I was looking at trying to bring gas usage into HA but it's the digital type and no pulse, and I'm pretty sure the smart elec meter doesn't pulsate either.
Hopefully when I get the d/n meter it will
It is a real shame that ESBN don't allow access to the HAN port on smart meters. Realtime access to meter information would be an actual benefit of a smart meter for end users. In home displays are provided with UK smart meters, but no sign of anything similar here.
Next best thing in terms if accuracy is probably this, but it depends on how your meter's optical pulse treats export. My D/N seems to pulse away happily whether importing or exporting. 🙄
I did.
It gives you way faster polling and you will see the import that the solis can't but even so it doesn't seem to give 100% accurate readings like your actual meter outside.
Has anyone installed a Shelly EM ?
I'm considering buying it but I'm wondering what will it give me over and above the Solis cloud and app?
I don't have any energy monitoring at the moment so that would be very useful -- the eddi/myenergi app does this to a limited extend but the shelly stuff is class
Didn't bother replying until I could do a diagram on the desktop. No a harvi won't be any help. I'd need to fish the inverter CT down along the tails from the CU in the house to the meter box.
Meter Box ┌──────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ MyEnergi │ │ CT │ │ ┌─────┐ ┌─┐ │ │ │ ├─┼┼┼────┐ │ │ │ D/N │ └─┘ │ │ │ │ │ ┌───┴───┐ │ │ └─┬───┘ │ │ │ │ │ │Main CU│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌──┴┐ └─┬──┬──┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Inverter ┌───────────────┐ │ │60A│ │ │ │ CT │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌─┐ │ House (Sub) │ │ └─┬─┘ │ └───────┼─────┼┼┼───────┤ Consumer Unit │ │ │ │ │ └─┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───────────────┘ └───┴───────────┼──────────┘ │ │ │ ┌─┴─────┐ │ Zappi │ │ │ └───────┘
Looking back at post that may have been 43110 that returned 33 and left me stumped
Was waiting until I got a chance to look at 43114 following previous comments I know I read it and that returned 33 but I didn’t understand what to do then to enable it
Seplos cannot control charge rate this is done on inverter side. Seplos only has on/off switch.
Is it possible to interface to the BMS (Seplos)? To set its max charge rate vis script/HA/NR...
(I don't have my DIY battery yet, so not familiar with the possibilities)
I tried it but could not make it work. When I read it I get '1' which I assume means enabled but when I try to send '0' and read it again I still get '1'. The write does not seem to fail, maybe something chages it back or I'm doing something wrong.
modbus.write_holding_register_formatted(register_addr=43114, value=0) print(modbus.read_holding_registers(register_addr=43114, quantity=1)) SENT: a5 17 00 10 45 00 00 c7 d6 2a ef 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 06 a8 6a 00 00 89 b6 7c 15 RECD: a5 16 00 10 15 00 6b c7 d6 2a ef 02 01 bd 6d b9 00 08 0b 00 00 f6 2f a4 61 01 06 a8 6a 00 00 89 b6 d7 15 SENT: a5 17 00 10 45 00 00 c7 d6 2a ef 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 03 a8 6a 00 01 84 76 35 15 RECD: a5 15 00 10 15 00 6c c7 d6 2a ef 02 01 bd 6d b9 00 09 0b 00 00 f6 2f a4 61 01 03 02 00 01 79 84 84 15 [1]
I was thinking along the lines of 43114 (battery_charge_and_discharge_enable_setting). Waiting for a sunny day to test.
Changing charging current if battery profile is selected is not going to work as BMS overides the setting unless manual battery is used but then BMS does not communicate with inverter. I would no go with disabling battery route. There are couple ways to prioritize other devices instead of battery:
I just let nodered to send register changes to mqtt and my code does the rest:
charge_amp": [43141] start_charge_hour": [43143] start_charge_minute": [43144] stop_charge_hour": [43145] stop_charge_minute": [43146]
First get current time. Change start_charge_hour to current hour and start_charge_minute to current minute. Set stop_charge_hour/minute for how long you want to divert but you can constantly monitor and adjust as required. I poll every 30s and modify based on generation if the sun drops I do not want to start importing. If you want to divert everything from PV to the car/water than set charge_amp to 0. I adjust based on generation or else I would start exporting as water heating element is 3kW. So if generation is 5kW I set charge_amp to 2 and that means 2kW goes to battery and 3kW to house and water.
start_charge_hour
start_charge_minute
stop_charge_hour/minute
charge_amp
Maybe someone will find a better solution :)
I already do it with my SolaX inverter, here's the automation:
alias: Hot Water Battery Controller description: '' trigger: - platform: time_pattern seconds: /30 condition: [] action: - choose: - conditions: - condition: state entity_id: sensor.myenergi_eddi_status state: Max temp reached sequence: - service: automation.turn_off data: stop_actions: false target: entity_id: automation.hot_water_battery_controller - service: input_number.set_value data: value: 20 target: entity_id: input_number.solax_battery_charge - conditions: - condition: not conditions: - condition: state entity_id: sensor.myenergi_eddi_status state: Max temp reached sequence: - service: input_number.set_value data_template: value: >- {{ max(0, ((states("sensor.total_pv_power") | int(0) - (states("sensor.myenergi_home_consumption") | int(0) + 3000)) / (states("sensor.solax_inverter_voltage") | int(0))) | int(0)) }} target: entity_id: input_number.solax_battery_charge default: [] mode: single
Would be interested in this too. Have you tried it @mp3guy ?
Was thinking of something similar to prioritise Immersion in the morning. Roughly:
If Battery has some buffer (e.g. > 40% SOC)
Then reduce battery charge current (e.g. to 0A / 20A)
Until immersion has heated a bit (e.g. consumed 2kWh), or EDDI Active Heater is no longer heater1
Hi,
I've been using the solarman HA integration for a day or two now and I had an issue with some parameters not showing up with the energy card. Kept on getting a 'last_reset' needed for 3 of the parameters. After reading this thread I changed the three in configuration.yaml as follows
homeassistant:
customize:
sensor.solarman_daily_generation:
state_class: total_increasing
sensor.solarman_today_battery_discharge:
sensor.solarman_today_battery_charge:
Now I can see the energy data (takes an hour or so to show up). BTW did this in HA rather than the original solis_hybrid.yaml just to experiment but I guess the original sensors class could also be updated there instead.
