Solar panel potential energy left unused

Energy
1

So I’ve got solar / inverter setup tied into HA.
This has been very helpful in controlling my pool, geyser, ac, etc. Pretty basic automations for controlling on / off during certain times, with additional things like “Don’t kill my batteries, should grid power be off” (I suffer from many power outages)

Now I’ve come to the point where I feel that some of these automations could do with just a little bit extra.

The idea: I would like my pool pump to start earlier / later depending on how much potential / headroom energy my solar panels have. Got some others as well.

The problem: My integration with my inverter only tells me how much energy my solar panels are currently generating and that is based on the current load, so I’m not able to see their potential generation until more load is added.

The question: What ideas / solutions to the above problem have people used before?
My current thought is to setup another solar panel, smaller in size that will feed into some continuous load, from that I measure what the load is able to draw from the panel and translate that into a percentage value of the panels maximum output.
This would then let me compare what the main system is doing VS the smaller setup, giving me my difference to work out how much headroom I potentially have.

Any thoughts, suggestions, pitfalls with the idea would be great.

Thanks.

Apologies if this is in the wrong section, assume it belongs here as it’s related to energy and optimising it’s usage.

2

Hi @Siru5

Have you tried using the forecast.solar integration? If not, I’d suggest adding the integration and comparing the forecast to your production. The decide how you might want to use it with your automation(s).

I don’t do EXACTLY what you want, but I do look at the weather forecast to determine the temperature setpoint for pre-cooling my home while the energy tariff is low. It is a very straightforward automation.

Also, if you are an advanced user, you may wish to look at EMHASS (an add-on), which uses sophisticated linear programming to determine the best time to run appliances according to various inputs (forecast, user history, etc.). I found it too difficult to use (couldn’t get things working), but others have had good success.

EMHASS add-on

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Just noticed a related post.

Water heater use with solar forecast

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Thanks for the suggestions, will have a look and see if they will fulfil my needs.