Show amount of energy consumed from grid while energy was produced / not produced

Feature Requests
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1

To have data for better decision base in the question if it would economically make sense to buy more solar panels and/or energy storage to increase energy-self-production and reduce costs, I think it would be helpful to see in the energy dashboard:

  • The amount of energy consumed from grid while solar panel produced at least 5% of production peak value, meaning the sun was shining somehow. So this energy consumed from grid could potentially be self-produced with more solar panels. (e.g. when having 600 W peak, show energy consumed from grid while panel produced at least 5% * 600 W = 30 W)

  • The amount of energy consumed from grid while solar panel produced nothing (meaning no sunshine). This amount of energy could not be self-produced with more panels alone. Only in combination with energy storage.

I would like to have that data for one year.

2

All of that can be inferred from these existing gauges:

Screenshot 2024-03-18 at 20-23-38 Energy – Home Assistant
Screenshot 2024-03-18 at 20-23-38 Energy – Home Assistant301×588 118 KB

The first oner tells you how much you exported or imported.

The second on tells you how much of the solar energy you produced you used yourself.

The third one tells you how much of your overall load for the period was met by solar energy.

This should be more than sufficient to tell you if buying more panels is worth it.

In my case it would not be.

I am already exporting a large amount to the grid but only meet 60% of my 24 hour consumption. This tells me a battery may be a better option for me.

3

@tom_l I do not think the data I requested could be inferred from the exiting gauges.

A self-sufficiency value of e.g. 50% does not tell me how much of the not-self-produced energy was consumed while the sun was not shining.

4

If the sun is not shining the amount of solar energy is irrelevant.

5

Right, and I want to know that exact amount of consumed energy that is irrelevant to solar energy (cannot be produced with solar directly), so I know how much energy remains that is relevant to solar energy (could potentially be produced with solar directly, because the existing panels did already produce at least some relevant energy at that regarding time).

6

wouldn’t the energy usage graph tell you those things though?

It tells you how much solar you’re producing, how much solar you’re selling (which isn’t being used), and how much consumption from grid you have if solar ISN’T providing enough.

Shouldn’t that be enough of a gauge to tell if it’d be better to buy more solar or buy storage? I’ve done this math in my head like a bunch of times as well since i’m hovering around 45% self consumed, BUT don’t generate enough excess power to fill a battery on a normal day enough to make the cost benefit worth it. I’d have to get more panels FIRST, then get storage.

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7

I’m not sure if this will help you, but I have a template sensor I call “solar reserve”: it’s the difference between what the forecast predicts for the current hour vs my actual solar production. There could of course be a lot of variation over an hour, depending on the weather, but on average this gives me a good enough trend. I’ve added this to my long-term stats, so I can plot over time e.g. whether I’ve utilised all of the available solar for that day or at what time I sit with excess solar with nothing to do with.

8

Thanks for Your feedback. Granularity of an hour would be sufficient, I guess (while it would be better to have granularity of a minute or even less). You are right, in your example graphic one can see that in 9 hours there was grid consumption while there was significant solar production. But a) I want precise data values of that, and b) I want that data cumulated for one year.

9

Thanks Pieter for the idea. It shows that there is demand for this kind of information. There would be no need for a workaround like your approach, if my request would be implemented, since we already have the existing real-life data of when the weather was so good that there was at least some (like 5% of peak) solar production. So, I think it would be obviously to just use that.

10

I’m with you on the granularity piece… I do wish the energy page had the option to swap the timelines from say hourly to like by 15/5 min chunk intervals.

Not sure how they chunk it into hourly right now since the data for me is only derivied from the currently KW rate and the global KWH consumed. i assume its doing some math somewhere in the background or keeping tabs on all data received for KW consumed during that time period.