I didn’t see an existing topic for this specific subject, so I’d figured I’ll create a new thread…
While working in the energy dashboard, I found it somewhat lacking in functionality.
This is basically a re-write of how the energy dashboard links things together, while providing a better view and understanding
Definitions (for context in this post)
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A Source is a device that provides power. Grid, Solar, Batteries, propane tank, water utility, are all examples of potential sources.
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A Sink is a device that will use power from a Source. HVAC, stove (gas or electric), dryer, water heater (gas or electric) are all good examples of a sink.
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An Energy Pool is a group of Sinks and Sources tied together to form a network - One that has inputs and outputs. Example: A stand-alone greenhouse with solar panels and batteries and no grid connection is a different energy pool than the main house, which may have a grid-only connection.
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An Energy Realm is the type of energy pool - Water, Gas (or Oil), Electricity.
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Batteries are both a source and a sink, and can either connect to the same energy pool or separate two energy pools (think about a computer battery backup; it has a source pool [house/outlet] and a sink pool [computer/router/network switch/wifi/modem etc])
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Solar Panels are source-only devices, and should be able to be linked to a sink pool (say directly to batteries / house etc).
Each realm has relatable objects (e.g. battery = gas tank = oil tank = water pressure tank, or grid = water utility = gas utility, or water collector = solar power… etc)
Additional reporting
An additional card on the side (pie chart for example) will be able show a meter (source/return to grid) and what sinks (powered devices) are using its energy (stove, dryer, heater, unknown, etc)
Water and gas can also be tracked this way, but not nearly as common (got a sub-meter to track how much water your garden / animal trough is using? Need to know how much water you collected / used over the summer?)