I discovered HA while trying to find a solution to maximize the consumption of the energy produced by the PV panels.
In short, what I am trying to do is to make the AC unit produce as much heat as possible only with the PV generated power. That means, let’s say when the PV makes 0.5 kWh, the AC should consume this power into heat. Then, when the PV makes 1.5 kWh, the AC should increase it’s consumption and tranform all this power into heat and so on. Of course, when there is no electricity generated by the PV, the should enter in stand-by mode or turn off.
Did anyone do this using HA? Can you explain to me how?
I supose al wifi enabled AC units could be used for this, but maybe some are more suitable (for example they could allow invertor speed control, not only temperature based control).
Assuming you can autosteer the AC, the main question/challenge will be what ‘power’ reading to use from the panels, as it changes all the time and you do not want (I guess) to change the AC all the time. You could take an average sensor of the past (say) 5 mins but then the power ‘now’ may be less. In stable sunshine this is fine, with us today in cloudy weather it goes up and down within 5 mins.
I see what you mean, but I will figure this out when I know what AC unit I could use.
The AC will consume maximum 2 kW so it will probably be covered by the panels output during daylight. In any case, just for safety, I will let it use 80% of the available pozer from the PV panels.
I donot have a actual example and this below may be done more efficiently but…
You could create a input_number, the value of that sensor sets the AC in a certain state
Added to that a automation that reads the PV and depending on the value in/decreases the input number, thus pushing the AC up/down.