Monitoring Solar with old inverter

Energy
1

In the UK, just moving to a house with an old SMA Sunny Boy inverter (circa 2010 install).

I don’t believe there will be any options with this unit to get data for monitoring production (although it does have the bluetooth module).

What options would there be to gather information, even if its via a simple CT clamp on the wires going from the inverter to the main power distribution board?
I am new to HA and want this to be one of my first projects, to show generated/consumed/exported on a screen.

At some point the inverter may need replacing, in which case we can get a modern smart one. But for now I need a simple solution to monitor production, and idealy consumption within the house too (export a bonus).

Likely I will get some AC connected batteries, but having data that shows what I produce, consume and export is going to help that calculation.

Thans in advance :slight_smile:

2

I don’t know how it works for you, but we have a separate “feed-in and yield meter” for photovoltaic systems and you can query it either via an LED sensor or via an optical interface.
If that doesn’t work, there are projects such as those from solarview. You can take a look, it’s in German but Google translates it.
This is how I queried my 13-year-old inverters via mqtt using an analog interface.

1 Like
3

Hi Man…

Yes of course…

I have a “Shelly Energy Meter” with 2 x 50 A Amperometric clamps

1°) Connected to the main cable that goes from the METER to the House
2°) Connected from the Inverter to the House/Meter.

So you see what you consume from the grid, what you export to the grid, and what you produce from the photovoltaic system.

So through Home Assistant, and also with the Shelly Smart Control APP, you can keep track of everything …

I do it like this… :wink:

Have a good evening

P.S= This is my:

https://www.shelly.com/en-gb/products/product-overview/shelly-em-120a/shelly-em-2x-50a

This is More Professional:

https://www.shelly.com/en-gb/products/product-overview/shelly-pro-em-2x50-a

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4

I have decided to order a clamp over the wire meter with 2 inputs, one for the whole house and one for the Solar feed. Lets see how that goes :slight_smile: