Solar Panels and HE

[dean]

I am considering putting solar panels on our roof. I would like to be able to see and test the current power generation of the panels. Is there a way to get this information into HE? Is there any device or method I should be considering as part of the solar panel installation?

[snyderr2]

There is a SolarEdge driver integration available that should show what you're looking for. I haven't personally tried it, but SolarEdge is one of the main players in the solar business. They integrate your panels, optimizers, battery, and input/output meter into a single view with their Inverters. Check it out:

[RELEASE] Solaredge Monitoring Device Driver

I'd like to share a driver I recently created to monitor a Solaredge inverter and site overview usage. It is capable of displaying the individual metrics or it combines inverter and site overview into their own individual tiles for easy visualization. Code is available at GitHub - funzie19/hubitat-solaredge: Hubitat driver to query the Solaredge API for inverter metrics Example of tiles: [tiles]

[nh.schottfam]

Enphase is also available

Enphase Solar monitoring

Here is the repo if more folks want to try it out. It is also available in HPM Instructions install the device driver code, and create device & configure it for your Enlighten System importUrl: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/imnotbob/EnvoyHE/master/device/enlighten-envoy-local.groovy Steps: From the HE main page, select Devices, then select Add Virtual Device Give the new device a name, I used Solar From the Device Type selection, scroll to the very bottom and select Enlighten En…

[marktheknife]

@frmWink2Hubitat

They sneak attacked me though and had a 20 year lease but it wasn’t in my paperwork.

What does that mean? Can you elaborate?

[funzie]

What size is the system? $100k for just panels is a lot of money. You can get a 15KwH for $30k before rebates. Does it have batteries?

It shouldn't be that hard to resell solar panels. If they are a company that does leasing, chances are they will just install them onto another customer's location. The problem is on what they remove and if they leave holes in the roof if it's a roof mounted system.

How old is the system? If it's old enough it's not even worth keeping. If they leave the mounting hardware installed just get another company to put newer panels and equipment in. Which might be cheaper than whatever offer they give you.

I'd say the decision to keep them would be depending on the hardware and the offer they accept. But by all that is holy, do not sign a lease for solar panels or do a PACE loan for solar panels.

Also the seller should have known and warned you, costs related to the removal or ownership transfer should be payed by them. I don't think the fault here lies on the solar company but on the previous owner. They should either pay the contract in full or pay for damages and/or removal of the panels.

[frmWink2Hubitat]

I have to look, I don’t know ANY OF THAT

[AndyR]

@dean Getting PV data in to Hubitat very much depends on what inverter you have. Unlikely to be able to use driver for inverter XXX to get data from inverter AAA.

I have an SMA Sunny Boy inverter & use SBFspot on a raspberry pi to upload data to pvoutput.org. Not managed to integrate into Hubitat yet.

[bendarklighter]

There is also one for Fronius.

jchurchward/Fronius-Solar-Inverter

I unfortunately also went with SMA Sunny Boy so I'm stuck having it integrated to Hubitat via Home Assistant. The HA-HE bridge doesn't support power meters yet so I have to run the automations on HA (yuck!)

[WBM]

I use these to monitor power / current etc:

Z-Wave Plus Aeotec Clamp Power Meter - One Clamp (60A)

I use two of them. One to monitor power output from the panels and one to monitor what is being drawn in via the mains.

With the magic of rule machine and a bit of maths, you can accurately see what is being generated v what is being bought in.

Happy to share the details if helpful.

I then use Hubigraph to show the data.