Solar power systems for the home

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I actually bought their basic monitor a few weeks back, but have not installed it yet. Reason I need it is that my Heat pump and EV charger are on a new panel in our garage, solar inverters tie into the original panel in the house. So their apps don't capture the true in-out when those two products are running. Plan is to install the Emporia one on the panel in the garage so I can see a true look at my stats, making the annual electrical rate switch a little less guesswork.

Oh okay. But you’re not planning on going too crazy monitoring each circuit in your panel or anything like that? I think I just need a bit of insight on overall use. I guess there is no way of reading the meter ourselves instead of having to install external hardware.

[Barnes]

I've looked into it but I built a spreadsheet to keep track. The pro-rated column is used to track non-billed time and usage and I use that to estimate an Export/Import ratio in real time. Just have to type in solar production to date, meter reading, export reading and number of days in the billing period. Once I get a bill, I enter the billing data and adjust the pro-rated accordingly.

I also track what the bill would have been without solar to calculate savings (or not). I based the spreadsheet on someone else's from this thread. Can't remember who though.

Dont know if it will make sense to anyone who is not me but you'll see I am quickly reaching an export/import ratio of 1:1 so I will likely switch this week to the lo rate.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Oh okay. But you’re not planning on going too crazy monitoring each circuit in your panel or anything like that? I think I just need a bit of insight on overall use. I guess there is no way of reading the meter ourselves instead of having to install external hardware.

Correct, I just grabbed the version that gives a readout for the entire panel, not individual breakers. I guess one could take readings from the meter, but I'm lazy and would prefer an app just show me usage/exporting instead.

This is the one I grabbed: https://a.co/d/01iOlzB