I am extracting data (via a MODBUS connection) from my Solar Inverter, such as Total Power Generated, in culmutative KWh. The inverter (Solax G4) produces all the right data for energy calculations directly so I am simply am putting these into number helper entities, and this works fine for creating a custom dashboard with all the gauges. However, these number helpers cannot be used on the energy dashboard. Should I use a different helper or is there a way of wrapping the numbers so they can be used?
Entities need long term statistics to appear on the energy dashboard, and to get these, they must have a state_class
that is one of: measurement; total; or total_increasing (see here). In your case you’d probably need "total_increasing ". You might also need a “device_class” of “energy”.
It appears that even if you set these for helpers using “customize.yaml”, they are not picked up appropriately. Instead you might have to create a template sensor that just copies the helper value. Instead, if you’re already using MQTT, you could skip the number helpers and using MQTT sensors.