Energy Dashboard Sensor Help

[Pub]

I finally got my power monitoring integrated into HA using some help from this thread.

The problem I have now is that I have an entity that tracks net power usage and goes negative when I returning power to the grid. The energy dashboard doesn’t like this negative value and I cannot figure out how to create a new sensor so it will read properly. I tried making it so when it was a negative value it turned positive and a positive value reported as 0. This worked but I could not use the sensor in the energy dashboard.

The code I have for the sensors currently is

Sensors.yaml

  - platform: integration
    source: sensor.net
    name: Net Back to Grid
    unit_prefix: k
    round: 2

Rest Sensor in Config.Yaml

- name: "Net"
        value_template: "{{ value_json.net }}"
        device_class: power
        unique_id: curb-14
        unit_of_measurement: W

Every variation I have tried that
will give me a positive value in kWh but will not allow me to select it in the energy dashboard.

I can use sensor.net_back_to_grid in the energy dashboard but because its a negative value it messes up the calculations.

Can anyone help me out? ChatGPT can only get me so far as my coding knowledge is laughable.

[msp1974 (Mark P)]

Have a read of this thread.

How to change a sensor to an "energy" sensor for energy dashboard

I have many sensors from my solar systems and emporia energy monitors that work on my own dashboards but not on the main HA energy dashboard. 3 of these are calculations from other sensors as you can see in my yaml.config file how do I make my sensors into energy sensors ? I think they need to have device_class: energy and state_class: measurement I am new to HA and would appreciate any help here is my current yaml I put the 3 backticks not sure why it did format like yaml? default_confi…

[luisgarcia87 (Daniel Garcia Elizondo)]

Are you using CURB’s to calculate your energy generation?

Here’s my code to convert CURB’S Solar Generation Watts Sensors to positive:

### CONVERT CURB VALUE TO POSITIVE FOR SOLAR CT 1
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      solar_panel_1_positive:
        value_template: "{{ states('sensor.curb_solar_panels_1') | int(0) | abs }}"
        friendly_name: 'Solar Panel 1 Power Generation'
        unit_of_measurement: 'W'

### CONVERT CURB VALUE TO POSITIVE FOR SOLAR CT 2
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      solar_panel_2_positive:
        value_template: "{{ states('sensor.curb_solar_panels_2') | int(0) | abs }}"
        friendly_name: 'Solar Panel 2 Power Generation'
        unit_of_measurement: 'W'

Here’s my code too sum each of the CT into 1 sensor:

### SUM SOLAR CT 1 + SOLAR CT 2
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      energy_solar_total:
        friendly_name: "Solar Total Power"
        unit_of_measurement: 'W'
        device_class: power
        value_template: "{{ states('sensor.solar_panel_1_positive') |float + states('sensor.solar_panel_2_positive') | float }}"

As you can see by my sensor I have 2 CT Clamps for measuring each leg of the breaker box feeding energy to the grid/house. If you want the sensor to show as energy (kWh) and not as power (W) you can create another sensor like this:

### CURB Energy Riemann sum integral ###   
  - platform: integration
    source: sensor.solar_total_power
    name: energy_return_to_grid
    unit_prefix: k
    round: 2

Let me know if you need any help if this does not work for your setup.

[Pub]

I hobbled some stuff together from your code and what I had so its now working.

I am using curb to calculate my energy generation. Curb outputs a variable Net, Consumption (total power being used), and Solar(although I am using my solaredge inverter to report this info as I already had it setup). The NET variable tells me how much power I am using from the grid (positive value) and how much power I am returning to the grid (negative value). So I made a sensor that reports any negative value of NET as return to grid and any positive value being from grid.

I am sure there is a more elegant way to make this work than the spaghetti I wrote but it seems to work.
Thank you very much