SMA Australia Energy Meter

Hardware
1

With the 2021.8 release pending, anyone using this meter reader from SMA? Other alternatives?

Not a cheap piece of hardware @ $600 au.

2

I am. Or at least I am attempting to.

The meter is currently connected directly to an SMA inverter via SMAā€™s ā€œSpeedwireā€, AKA Ethernet. The inverter connects to the network via wifi.

With the meter connected directly to the inverter I lose connection to SunnyPortal and donā€™t see any meter entities in the home assistant integration (I still get the solar entities). I do see the meter data in the Inverterā€™s internal web page though.

Iā€™m hoping that by connecting the inverter and the meter separately to my network switch that this will be resolved. Waiting on the solar installer to fix this. Missed the beta because of it. :angry:

Also I got my meter free with the solar install. :slight_smile: It was not initially specā€™d on the solar install and after installation I remarked that I had no grid data so they installed it free!

One thing to be aware of is that itā€™s maximum current capability is 63A. If you need more than that you need a current transformer (additional cost).

Cheaper alternatives:

For up to two circuits a good alternative is the Shelly EM (Iā€™m using this too, very happy with it).

For lots (up to 14 or more) of circuits have a look at the iotawatt. Many happy users on the forum.

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3

Thanks for the informative reply Tomā€¦ when you say ā€œdirectly connectedā€ you do mean bypassing a network switch? And the use of crossover cable (to that effect) is used.

Maybe the Iotawatt or Shelly is the better option for me here.

Let me know how you go once you get it looked at.

Thanks

4

Correct. Meter <ā€”> Inverter, directly.

You could but itā€™s not needed. All Speedwire ports support Auto MDI / MDIX. So you can use a straight-through or crossover cable.

They certainly would be cheaper (I was surprised at the price you quoted) and perform just as well, if not better (more monitoring circuits).

Will do.

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5

Iā€™m also using it with my SB5 inverter. I have the inverter connected to LAN via wireless and the meter connected via direct ā€œspeedwireā€ connection. I still have access to SunnyPortal and in HA and the SMA integration I can see my power generation on each tracker, but consumption not so much. I effectively have to read in the the solar power generated, plus grid power absorbed to output a consumption amount.

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6

Do you reckon these two definitions are back to front in the documentation:

Screenshot 2021-08-06 at 15-05-42 SMA Solar
Screenshot 2021-08-06 at 15-05-42 SMA Solar750Ɨ433 9.33 KB

Iā€™m seeing total yield go up during the day but not at night. Likewise for total absorbed I see it increase at night, not during the day.

7

100%. I renamed my entities to try and straighten it out.

yield is what you generate, absorb is what you pull in, but the sensors in my mind, are backwards.

I have sensor.sma_grid_total_absorbed which is the total amount of solar I have generated since setup
I then have sensor.sma_grid_total_yield which is the total amount of power I have pulled from the grid

I also have sensor.sma_current_consumption and sensor.sma_total_consumption but I was getting Pysma warnings, so disabled them

8

I just submitted a PR to get the document changed.

So this template should give me self solar energy consumption:

{{ states('sensor.total_yield')|float - states('sensor.metering_total_yield')|float }}

And for total energy consumption (solar + grid):

{{ states('sensor.total_yield')|float - states('sensor.metering_total_yield')|float + states('sensor.metering_total_absorbed') }}

Both of which will have to be put through Utility Meters to get sensible values.

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