If you are ever unsure, go to dev tools / template and paste it in to get an instant result.
In my case, i got the same result regardless of the minus next to the %.
Correct. Given your curl result is null, that would explain why you dont have it in energy dashboard yet.
Another dead give away is when you visit the GUI at https://www.electricitymap.org/map and it says “Live data temporarily unavailable”
I found a suitable CO2 Signal location “US-CENT-SWPP”
@del13r I think you have racked up at least a case of beers from everyone you have helped out here! I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say… THANK YOU Very much for your support!
Thanks for the info del13r. It works just great.
Might be an idea to put this in bold in the first post. I set this up yesterday afternoon following your instructions and was pulling my hair out for ages trying to work out why the custom sensors were not being graphed and why my graphs looked totally wrong.
I know HA has the 2 hour message at the top of page but as the custom sensors were showing data via dev tools I assumed they were working and something else was broken. Just as I was about to post here about it, they showed up. I’m assuming it is the same thing this morning as I have just added the co2 data which isn’t showing on the energy dashboard yet.
Good idea. Telling people to be patient can be a bit hit and miss. I’ve updated the original post.
I have a question for you on this… this is pretty nice data to collect, so I’m following you lead on this.
I run the IQ-7a inverters. In the spec sheet they list a power factor of 0.85 (leading/lagging). So I’m trying to figure out which power factor in the json output is what the spec sheet is referring to.
I expanded your code to grab the production and consumption value, then set up some ranges:
…I’m currently on the phone with enphase to get their take on this also… I think it would be very useful info to log this data. Would help us more to know when its time to clean off the panels for better production.
EDIT: Enphase support cringed at api questions… referred me to their forums, which looks super clunky https://community.enphase.com/s/topic/0TO2G0000009nLJWAY/enlighten-and-envoy?tabset-b0285=2
Thank you very much, just follow it and is now working great, I have a sense monitor, and was not getting the correct numbers until I follow your recommendations
I expected as much. You are asking questions that they probably don’t have in their script. As an observation, my consumption power factor went up and down with how much is was/wasn’t consuming.
It will help if you understand what Power Factor (PF) actually is as it seems you’re confused- cleaning your panels won’t make any difference to PF.
In simple terms PF is a measure of how efficient your power usage or consumption is. A PF of 1 means your power usage/production is 100% efficient while PF of 0.8 means you’re 80% efficient and you’re wasting 20% of power. PF is determined by the type of load in your home - linear or non-linear. If you have many resistive loads (hot water heaters, radiators) your PF will be close to 1. If you have inductive or capacitive loads (UPS, battery, motors, switch mode power supplies, pool pump, refrigerators etc) then your PF will be inefficient and you’ll be wasting power to drive those loads that are either leading or lagging (PF of 0.8 or -0.8 for example). Ordinarily we can’t control our PF because our devices are what they are- you can buy a PF correction controller however and most large factories have these - it used to be banks of capacitors as most factories have inductive loads from motors and the capacitor balance the PF. The PF correctors aren’t cheap, however if you’re house has a PF constantly a long way from 1 then you will save money over time so the PF corrector will eventually pay for itself. You may also want to check the legality of installing a PF corrector in case your Power company bans them - after all they are saving you money so they may not be happy about that. Hope that helps - the PF figures in the brochure just mean it can measure PF between the normal + and - range that PF will occur.
So in your gauge your production PF is perfectly efficient as it’s 1 and no power is wasted - your consumption PF however is extremely inefficient - you’re using 54% more power (PF of .46) to drive your house load. You must have lots of motors/pumps/switch mode power supplies etc.
To better understand PF efficiency, an analogy is to imagine a pipe with water flowing ( funny how we always use water in pipes to explain stuff). If the pipe is level on the ground then you have no gravity to deal with. The PF in this example is 1. Now imagine the pipe is at a 45 degree angle - you now have to overcome gravity and it’s harder to pump the water. Your PF is above or below 1 in this example.
excellent explanation… thanks for that.
I do have a variety of pumps used (fridges, freezers, pool, aquarium) and servers.
So after running this for more than a full day I decided to compare the numbers for yesterday between HA, Enphase MyEnlighten and my electricity supplier. At first glance, HA is way out from MyEnlighten on the imports and exports and I thought that something was wrong. But then when I looked at my electricity supplier, HA is far closer to the numbers they are quoting for imports and exports.
MyEnlighten
Produced 21.6
Imported 25.8
Consumed 44.6
Exported 2.8
Net Imported 23.0
HA
Produced 21.6
Imported 29.6
Consumed 43.8
Exported 7.4
Net Imported 22.2
Electricity supplier
Imported 30.21
Exported 7.14
Net Imported 23.07
Conclusion: while the net import works out, the import and export numbers in MyEnlighten may be pretty far off the reality of what I am being billed for. I’m not sure why that might be. I do have an older string of panels without Enphase microinverters that were also connected to run through Envoy when I got the new install and I know their production is being counted. Perhaps something to do with that, though HA is just reading the numbers from Envoy so it shouldn’t be an issue. Anyway having more accurate data through HA is a pleasant surprise.
I’m going to assume it’s because home assistant gets enphase data every minute vs enlighten getting data every 5 mins at best. There might be activity that HA sees and enlighten doesnt
Yeah I thought that might be the case. Maybe enlighten is summing or cancelling out short term positive and negative imports/exports that happen in the period between uploads.
I have some insight on accuracy - I have two sensors that count the kWh directly from the Envoy using its internal urls discussed above. I also have two Power meters (Consumption and Production) with pulse outputs which send 2,000 pulses per kWh - I have a separate device that counts the pulses within HA.
When I compare the kWh figures reported by the Envoy they are identical to the figures calculated via the independent pulse counter. I don’t use the figures you can obtain via the Envoy Enphase cloud (which I think the internal integration uses?) because of delays and I don’t want to be reliant on a third party for my data.
I’ve got some weirdness going on here that I don’t understand…
The energy distribution flow doesn’t represent what I see coming from the Envoy - I’m using the template that @dgaust suggested for imported and exported energy, but the reading from the panels is wrong, which is using “Envoy Lifetime Energy Production” as the sensor.
Am I reading something incorrectly, or is it not working to spec?
These sensors don’t go back in time - so they will start calculating from when you added them, not historically. So although you’ve generated about 16.2kWh today, it looks like you’ve only generated 8.9kWh since you setup the integration.
The enphase sensor, or the templated one? If the energy integration isn’t able to use sensors that have accurate data, then that’s counter-intuitive, and it just becomes a pretty flow picture that’s close to meaningless
I’m not sure what you’re saying, the integration only shows data from the moment it’s setup. It doesn’t work backwards from existing data. However, once it’s setup you can go backwards (but only to the point you set it up).
They are accurate if you have set them up correctly.
How long ago did you setup the Energy integration? On the energy page, how long is the data displayed for?
Your first day will not be accurate because the integration sensor didn’t start recording at midnight. It started the odometer at whenever you added the sensor. Tomorrow will be accurate, today won’t.
I’ve been running the integration for envoy since it’s first release, so this is by no means the first day it’s been running, and I’ve been on this build since it was released
