EdDee

Here's a page of my Emon that shows what's happening in detail (Things I am monitoring as I see fit, I add/remove/play here)... It is all pi based, being fed from custom software I have written in Node Red... If anybody is interested, I will post a few more pics of the node red dashboards when I get a chance... The pi is controlling somewhere around 30 to 40 wifi switches, doing everything from irrigation to lighting to grey water recycling to fridge, washing machine, dishwasher, deepfreeze, to multi element geyser control(to name but a few)......(Oh yes... Also integrated 433mhz remote fobs to control selected lighting at will)...

Hi @Joe Moer,
Here is the main info screen I use on the cell phone, a little truncated, but its just status lights that are cut off at the bottom of the page:

And a similar content, but different layout when viewed on PC:

The setup has got quite involved, with parameters specifically written for each "main" piece of kit on the system:

Certain pieces of kit are SOC controlled, others are controlled by availability of sunlight power, others are solar timed and more often than not, a combination the available options is used to get the best/most out of what energy is available at any given moment - There are also a couple of cute little things I have incorporated to keep the loads below the nominal 3kw mark - This isn't out of necessity, but I am not wild about inverter wear and tear mounting up (It can handle 5kw with a 10kw surge, plus I have a 2nd that I can parallel it with if I need to, but why should I, if I can keep loads in tow automatically?).. One of these tricks is that when a heavy load turns on by available power, other loads are turned off... ie when the dishwasher hits the 2kw heating cycle, deep freeze, air compressor etc are barred from starting and if they are running, they are shut down immediately until the high demand is over....
Here below is a fairly complex parameter screen, namely for the DeepFreeze - It has 3 temperature bands based on day/night and excess power availability, with the option of offsetting day and night times depending on your needs, it also takes care of power failures, checking the SOC and economising power usage when there is no mains power to fall back onto by shifting to the "night temperature" bandwidth... (Oh yes, the system is both Lead Acid and LiFe friendly, with control being selectable from either SOC or Battery Voltage governing...):
 

 
Amongst other features (beyond just turning on fridges, pumps, compressors and washing machines etc) that I have written into the system are:
Luminescence detection (used for determining maximum solar power availability on the fly) SOC control based on reported SOC from inverter OR direct SOC from the Pylon batteries(with 4x Pylons in the system, SOC switching can be fine tuned to within .25%) Monitoring of Inverter Output and the ability to warn users of heavy usage Switching of Inverter modes, be it charger source or inverter mode proper remotely Setting of utility charge current remotely Automatic security lighting based on SOC and solar timers Water preheating based on excess power availability, this heated water is then fed into gas geysers for final heating if required - 8 stage multi load purely resistive element, temperature and power availability controlled... System messaging and control via Telegram alerts to control remotely as well as be notified of urgent system items. Telegram control of external Lighting Control of auto start diesel generator - This only starts when there is a mains failure and batteries are nearing depletion - The system then puts the inverter into eco mode, switches to utility and solar charging, sets the charge current, then monitors SOC until it is within bounds... It then shuts the gennie down, switches to battery, sets charge/inverter/everything back to "normal" mode... (All modes, currents, SOC's etc are user configurable) 433mhz(keeloq) remote key fob control for security lighting or whatever grabs my fancy (currently only controlling lighting but can be easily expanded to turn on equipment as I need) - this is specific to remote control fob user, per button or combination of remote buttons pressed.... Timer controlled "smart charger" - if load shedding is scheduled, and SOC is a bit low to carry through due to inclement weather, there is a "smart charger mode" that can be timer enabled to charge the batteries prior to the shed happening - Modes etc are similar to the auto start gennie enviro, but take advantage of the lower cost of mains charging rather than diesel charging if possible (automatically going back to preset running inverter defaults once the event is past)... Along with probably a hell of a lot more that doesn't spring to mind at the moment!
@lupasha -
All of this is ostensibly wifi based, running on either Tasmotized Sonoffs or custom written 8266 wifi units... As to Home Assistant, I am clueless - this is all running running on a pi4-4gb with a 16gb mem card that is hooked to my inverter, running Node Red as a controller enviro with all the dangly bits reporting in via MQTT(Mosquitto) - CPU usage on the Pi4 hovers around 20 to 30%, so it is far from stressed... Data collection and trending is done with EmonCMS, only because I started with it a few years back and haven't had a chance to redo the front end under an Influx/Grafana environment...
Cheers
Ed

This is very cool! Well done 

Hi @Joe Moer,
Here is the main info screen I use on the cell phone, a little truncated, but its just status lights that are cut off at the bottom of the page:

And a similar content, but different layout when viewed on PC:

The setup has got quite involved, with parameters specifically written for each "main" piece of kit on the system:

Certain pieces of kit are SOC controlled, others are controlled by availability of sunlight power, others are solar timed and more often than not, a combination the available options is used to get the best/most out of what energy is available at any given moment - There are also a couple of cute little things I have incorporated to keep the loads below the nominal 3kw mark - This isn't out of necessity, but I am not wild about inverter wear and tear mounting up (It can handle 5kw with a 10kw surge, plus I have a 2nd that I can parallel it with if I need to, but why should I, if I can keep loads in tow automatically?).. One of these tricks is that when a heavy load turns on by available power, other loads are turned off... ie when the dishwasher hits the 2kw heating cycle, deep freeze, air compressor etc are barred from starting and if they are running, they are shut down immediately until the high demand is over....
Here below is a fairly complex parameter screen, namely for the DeepFreeze - It has 3 temperature bands based on day/night and excess power availability, with the option of offsetting day and night times depending on your needs, it also takes care of power failures, checking the SOC and economising power usage when there is no mains power to fall back onto by shifting to the "night temperature" bandwidth... (Oh yes, the system is both Lead Acid and LiFe friendly, with control being selectable from either SOC or Battery Voltage governing...):
 

 
Amongst other features (beyond just turning on fridges, pumps, compressors and washing machines etc) that I have written into the system are:
Luminescence detection (used for determining maximum solar power availability on the fly) SOC control based on reported SOC from inverter OR direct SOC from the Pylon batteries(with 4x Pylons in the system, SOC switching can be fine tuned to within .25%) Monitoring of Inverter Output and the ability to warn users of heavy usage Switching of Inverter modes, be it charger source or inverter mode proper remotely Setting of utility charge current remotely Automatic security lighting based on SOC and solar timers Water preheating based on excess power availability, this heated water is then fed into gas geysers for final heating if required - 8 stage multi load purely resistive element, temperature and power availability controlled... System messaging and control via Telegram alerts to control remotely as well as be notified of urgent system items. Telegram control of external Lighting Control of auto start diesel generator - This only starts when there is a mains failure and batteries are nearing depletion - The system then puts the inverter into eco mode, switches to utility and solar charging, sets the charge current, then monitors SOC until it is within bounds... It then shuts the gennie down, switches to battery, sets charge/inverter/everything back to "normal" mode... (All modes, currents, SOC's etc are user configurable) 433mhz(keeloq) remote key fob control for security lighting or whatever grabs my fancy (currently only controlling lighting but can be easily expanded to turn on equipment as I need) - this is specific to remote control fob user, per button or combination of remote buttons pressed.... Timer controlled "smart charger" - if load shedding is scheduled, and SOC is a bit low to carry through due to inclement weather, there is a "smart charger mode" that can be timer enabled to charge the batteries prior to the shed happening - Modes etc are similar to the auto start gennie enviro, but take advantage of the lower cost of mains charging rather than diesel charging if possible (automatically going back to preset running inverter defaults once the event is past)... Along with probably a hell of a lot more that doesn't spring to mind at the moment!
@lupasha -
All of this is ostensibly wifi based, running on either Tasmotized Sonoffs or custom written 8266 wifi units... As to Home Assistant, I am clueless - this is all running running on a pi4-4gb with a 16gb mem card that is hooked to my inverter, running Node Red as a controller enviro with all the dangly bits reporting in via MQTT(Mosquitto) - CPU usage on the Pi4 hovers around 20 to 30%, so it is far from stressed... Data collection and trending is done with EmonCMS, only because I started with it a few years back and haven't had a chance to redo the front end under an Influx/Grafana environment...
Cheers
Ed

Hi @Joe Moer,
Here is the main info screen I use on the cell phone, a little truncated, but its just status lights that are cut off at the bottom of the page:

And a similar content, but different layout when viewed on PC:

The setup has got quite involved, with parameters specifically written for each "main" piece of kit on the system:

Certain pieces of kit are SOC controlled, others are controlled by availability of sunlight power, others are solar timed and more often than not, a combination the available options is used to get the best/most out of what energy is available at any given moment - There are also a couple of cute little things I have incorporated to keep the loads below the nominal 3kw mark - This isn't out of necessity, but I am not wild about inverter wear and tear mounting up (It can handle 5kw with a 10kw surge, plus I have a 2nd that I can parallel it with if I need to, but why should I, if I can keep loads in tow automatically?).. One of these tricks is that when a heavy load turns on by available power, other loads are turned off... ie when the dishwasher hits the 2kw heating cycle, deep freeze, air compressor etc are barred from starting and if they are running, they are shut down immediately until the high demand is over....
Here below is a fairly complex parameter screen, namely for the DeepFreeze - It has 3 temperature bands based on day/night and excess power availability, with the option of offsetting day and night times depending on your needs, it also takes care of power failures, checking the SOC and economising power usage when there is no mains power to fall back onto by shifting to the "night temperature" bandwidth... (Oh yes, the system is both Lead Acid and LiFe friendly, with control being selectable from either SOC or Battery Voltage governing...):
 

 
Amongst other features (beyond just turning on fridges, pumps, compressors and washing machines etc) that I have written into the system are:
Luminescence detection (used for determining maximum solar power availability on the fly) SOC control based on reported SOC from inverter OR direct SOC from the Pylon batteries(with 4x Pylons in the system, SOC switching can be fine tuned to within .25%) Monitoring of Inverter Output and the ability to warn users of heavy usage Switching of Inverter modes, be it charger source or inverter mode proper remotely Setting of utility charge current remotely Automatic security lighting based on SOC and solar timers Water preheating based on excess power availability, this heated water is then fed into gas geysers for final heating if required - 8 stage multi load purely resistive element, temperature and power availability controlled... System messaging and control via Telegram alerts to control remotely as well as be notified of urgent system items. Telegram control of external Lighting Control of auto start diesel generator - This only starts when there is a mains failure and batteries are nearing depletion - The system then puts the inverter into eco mode, switches to utility and solar charging, sets the charge current, then monitors SOC until it is within bounds... It then shuts the gennie down, switches to battery, sets charge/inverter/everything back to "normal" mode... (All modes, currents, SOC's etc are user configurable) 433mhz(keeloq) remote key fob control for security lighting or whatever grabs my fancy (currently only controlling lighting but can be easily expanded to turn on equipment as I need) - this is specific to remote control fob user, per button or combination of remote buttons pressed.... Timer controlled "smart charger" - if load shedding is scheduled, and SOC is a bit low to carry through due to inclement weather, there is a "smart charger mode" that can be timer enabled to charge the batteries prior to the shed happening - Modes etc are similar to the auto start gennie enviro, but take advantage of the lower cost of mains charging rather than diesel charging if possible (automatically going back to preset running inverter defaults once the event is past)... Along with probably a hell of a lot more that doesn't spring to mind at the moment!
@lupasha -
All of this is ostensibly wifi based, running on either Tasmotized Sonoffs or custom written 8266 wifi units... As to Home Assistant, I am clueless - this is all running running on a pi4-4gb with a 16gb mem card that is hooked to my inverter, running Node Red as a controller enviro with all the dangly bits reporting in via MQTT(Mosquitto) - CPU usage on the Pi4 hovers around 20 to 30%, so it is far from stressed... Data collection and trending is done with EmonCMS, only because I started with it a few years back and haven't had a chance to redo the front end under an Influx/Grafana environment...
Cheers
Ed

Hi @Joe Moer,
Here is the main info screen I use on the cell phone, a little truncated, but its just status lights that are cut off at the bottom of the page:

And a similar content, but different layout when viewed on PC:

The setup has got quite involved, with parameters specifically written for each "main" piece of kit on the system:

Certain pieces of kit are SOC controlled, others are controlled by availability of sunlight power, others are solar timed and more often than not, a combination the available options is used to get the best/most out of what energy is available at any given moment - There are also a couple of cute little things I have incorporated to keep the loads below the nominal 3kw mark - This isn't out of necessity, but I am not wild about inverter wear and tear mounting up (It can handle 5kw with a 10kw surge, plus I have a 2nd that I can parallel it with if I need to, but why should I, if I can keep loads in tow automatically?).. One of these tricks is that when a heavy load turns on by available power, other loads are turned off... ie when the dishwasher hits the 2kw heating cycle, deep freeze, air compressor etc are barred from starting and if they are running, they are shut down immediately until the high demand is over....
Here below is a fairly complex parameter screen, namely for the DeepFreeze - It has 3 temperature bands based on day/night and excess power availability, with the option of offsetting day and night times depending on your needs, it also takes care of power failures, checking the SOC and economising power usage when there is no mains power to fall back onto by shifting to the "night temperature" bandwidth... (Oh yes, the system is both Lead Acid and LiFe friendly, with control being selectable from either SOC or Battery Voltage governing...):
 

 
Amongst other features (beyond just turning on fridges, pumps, compressors and washing machines etc) that I have written into the system are:
Luminescence detection (used for determining maximum solar power availability on the fly) SOC control based on reported SOC from inverter OR direct SOC from the Pylon batteries(with 4x Pylons in the system, SOC switching can be fine tuned to within .25%) Monitoring of Inverter Output and the ability to warn users of heavy usage Switching of Inverter modes, be it charger source or inverter mode proper remotely Setting of utility charge current remotely Automatic security lighting based on SOC and solar timers Water preheating based on excess power availability, this heated water is then fed into gas geysers for final heating if required - 8 stage multi load purely resistive element, temperature and power availability controlled... System messaging and control via Telegram alerts to control remotely as well as be notified of urgent system items. Telegram control of external Lighting Control of auto start diesel generator - This only starts when there is a mains failure and batteries are nearing depletion - The system then puts the inverter into eco mode, switches to utility and solar charging, sets the charge current, then monitors SOC until it is within bounds... It then shuts the gennie down, switches to battery, sets charge/inverter/everything back to "normal" mode... (All modes, currents, SOC's etc are user configurable) 433mhz(keeloq) remote key fob control for security lighting or whatever grabs my fancy (currently only controlling lighting but can be easily expanded to turn on equipment as I need) - this is specific to remote control fob user, per button or combination of remote buttons pressed.... Timer controlled "smart charger" - if load shedding is scheduled, and SOC is a bit low to carry through due to inclement weather, there is a "smart charger mode" that can be timer enabled to charge the batteries prior to the shed happening - Modes etc are similar to the auto start gennie enviro, but take advantage of the lower cost of mains charging rather than diesel charging if possible (automatically going back to preset running inverter defaults once the event is past)... Along with probably a hell of a lot more that doesn't spring to mind at the moment!
@lupasha -
All of this is ostensibly wifi based, running on either Tasmotized Sonoffs or custom written 8266 wifi units... As to Home Assistant, I am clueless - this is all running running on a pi4-4gb with a 16gb mem card that is hooked to my inverter, running Node Red as a controller enviro with all the dangly bits reporting in via MQTT(Mosquitto) - CPU usage on the Pi4 hovers around 20 to 30%, so it is far from stressed... Data collection and trending is done with EmonCMS, only because I started with it a few years back and haven't had a chance to redo the front end under an Influx/Grafana environment...
Cheers
Ed

Hi @Joe Moer,
Here is the main info screen I use on the cell phone, a little truncated, but its just status lights that are cut off at the bottom of the page:

And a similar content, but different layout when viewed on PC:

The setup has got quite involved, with parameters specifically written for each "main" piece of kit on the system:

Certain pieces of kit are SOC controlled, others are controlled by availability of sunlight power, others are solar timed and more often than not, a combination the available options is used to get the best/most out of what energy is available at any given moment - There are also a couple of cute little things I have incorporated to keep the loads below the nominal 3kw mark - This isn't out of necessity, but I am not wild about inverter wear and tear mounting up (It can handle 5kw with a 10kw surge, plus I have a 2nd that I can parallel it with if I need to, but why should I, if I can keep loads in tow automatically?).. One of these tricks is that when a heavy load turns on by available power, other loads are turned off... ie when the dishwasher hits the 2kw heating cycle, deep freeze, air compressor etc are barred from starting and if they are running, they are shut down immediately until the high demand is over....
Here below is a fairly complex parameter screen, namely for the DeepFreeze - It has 3 temperature bands based on day/night and excess power availability, with the option of offsetting day and night times depending on your needs, it also takes care of power failures, checking the SOC and economising power usage when there is no mains power to fall back onto by shifting to the "night temperature" bandwidth... (Oh yes, the system is both Lead Acid and LiFe friendly, with control being selectable from either SOC or Battery Voltage governing...):
 

 
Amongst other features (beyond just turning on fridges, pumps, compressors and washing machines etc) that I have written into the system are:
Luminescence detection (used for determining maximum solar power availability on the fly) SOC control based on reported SOC from inverter OR direct SOC from the Pylon batteries(with 4x Pylons in the system, SOC switching can be fine tuned to within .25%) Monitoring of Inverter Output and the ability to warn users of heavy usage Switching of Inverter modes, be it charger source or inverter mode proper remotely Setting of utility charge current remotely Automatic security lighting based on SOC and solar timers Water preheating based on excess power availability, this heated water is then fed into gas geysers for final heating if required - 8 stage multi load purely resistive element, temperature and power availability controlled... System messaging and control via Telegram alerts to control remotely as well as be notified of urgent system items. Telegram control of external Lighting Control of auto start diesel generator - This only starts when there is a mains failure and batteries are nearing depletion - The system then puts the inverter into eco mode, switches to utility and solar charging, sets the charge current, then monitors SOC until it is within bounds... It then shuts the gennie down, switches to battery, sets charge/inverter/everything back to "normal" mode... (All modes, currents, SOC's etc are user configurable) 433mhz(keeloq) remote key fob control for security lighting or whatever grabs my fancy (currently only controlling lighting but can be easily expanded to turn on equipment as I need) - this is specific to remote control fob user, per button or combination of remote buttons pressed.... Timer controlled "smart charger" - if load shedding is scheduled, and SOC is a bit low to carry through due to inclement weather, there is a "smart charger mode" that can be timer enabled to charge the batteries prior to the shed happening - Modes etc are similar to the auto start gennie enviro, but take advantage of the lower cost of mains charging rather than diesel charging if possible (automatically going back to preset running inverter defaults once the event is past)... Along with probably a hell of a lot more that doesn't spring to mind at the moment!
@lupasha -
All of this is ostensibly wifi based, running on either Tasmotized Sonoffs or custom written 8266 wifi units... As to Home Assistant, I am clueless - this is all running running on a pi4-4gb with a 16gb mem card that is hooked to my inverter, running Node Red as a controller enviro with all the dangly bits reporting in via MQTT(Mosquitto) - CPU usage on the Pi4 hovers around 20 to 30%, so it is far from stressed... Data collection and trending is done with EmonCMS, only because I started with it a few years back and haven't had a chance to redo the front end under an Influx/Grafana environment...
Cheers
Ed

Here's a page of my Emon that shows what's happening in detail (Things I am monitoring as I see fit, I add/remove/play here)... It is all pi based, being fed from custom software I have written in Node Red... If anybody is interested, I will post a few more pics of the node red dashboards when I get a chance... The pi is controlling somewhere around 30 to 40 wifi switches, doing everything from irrigation to lighting to grey water recycling to fridge, washing machine, dishwasher, deepfreeze, to multi element geyser control(to name but a few)......(Oh yes... Also integrated 433mhz remote fobs to control selected lighting at will)...

Hi @Joe Moer,
Here is the main info screen I use on the cell phone, a little truncated, but its just status lights that are cut off at the bottom of the page:

And a similar content, but different layout when viewed on PC:

The setup has got quite involved, with parameters specifically written for each "main" piece of kit on the system:

Certain pieces of kit are SOC controlled, others are controlled by availability of sunlight power, others are solar timed and more often than not, a combination the available options is used to get the best/most out of what energy is available at any given moment - There are also a couple of cute little things I have incorporated to keep the loads below the nominal 3kw mark - This isn't out of necessity, but I am not wild about inverter wear and tear mounting up (It can handle 5kw with a 10kw surge, plus I have a 2nd that I can parallel it with if I need to, but why should I, if I can keep loads in tow automatically?).. One of these tricks is that when a heavy load turns on by available power, other loads are turned off... ie when the dishwasher hits the 2kw heating cycle, deep freeze, air compressor etc are barred from starting and if they are running, they are shut down immediately until the high demand is over....
Here below is a fairly complex parameter screen, namely for the DeepFreeze - It has 3 temperature bands based on day/night and excess power availability, with the option of offsetting day and night times depending on your needs, it also takes care of power failures, checking the SOC and economising power usage when there is no mains power to fall back onto by shifting to the "night temperature" bandwidth... (Oh yes, the system is both Lead Acid and LiFe friendly, with control being selectable from either SOC or Battery Voltage governing...):
 

 
Amongst other features (beyond just turning on fridges, pumps, compressors and washing machines etc) that I have written into the system are:
Luminescence detection (used for determining maximum solar power availability on the fly) SOC control based on reported SOC from inverter OR direct SOC from the Pylon batteries(with 4x Pylons in the system, SOC switching can be fine tuned to within .25%) Monitoring of Inverter Output and the ability to warn users of heavy usage Switching of Inverter modes, be it charger source or inverter mode proper remotely Setting of utility charge current remotely Automatic security lighting based on SOC and solar timers Water preheating based on excess power availability, this heated water is then fed into gas geysers for final heating if required - 8 stage multi load purely resistive element, temperature and power availability controlled... System messaging and control via Telegram alerts to control remotely as well as be notified of urgent system items. Telegram control of external Lighting Control of auto start diesel generator - This only starts when there is a mains failure and batteries are nearing depletion - The system then puts the inverter into eco mode, switches to utility and solar charging, sets the charge current, then monitors SOC until it is within bounds... It then shuts the gennie down, switches to battery, sets charge/inverter/everything back to "normal" mode... (All modes, currents, SOC's etc are user configurable) 433mhz(keeloq) remote key fob control for security lighting or whatever grabs my fancy (currently only controlling lighting but can be easily expanded to turn on equipment as I need) - this is specific to remote control fob user, per button or combination of remote buttons pressed.... Timer controlled "smart charger" - if load shedding is scheduled, and SOC is a bit low to carry through due to inclement weather, there is a "smart charger mode" that can be timer enabled to charge the batteries prior to the shed happening - Modes etc are similar to the auto start gennie enviro, but take advantage of the lower cost of mains charging rather than diesel charging if possible (automatically going back to preset running inverter defaults once the event is past)... Along with probably a hell of a lot more that doesn't spring to mind at the moment!
@lupasha -
All of this is ostensibly wifi based, running on either Tasmotized Sonoffs or custom written 8266 wifi units... As to Home Assistant, I am clueless - this is all running running on a pi4-4gb with a 16gb mem card that is hooked to my inverter, running Node Red as a controller enviro with all the dangly bits reporting in via MQTT(Mosquitto) - CPU usage on the Pi4 hovers around 20 to 30%, so it is far from stressed... Data collection and trending is done with EmonCMS, only because I started with it a few years back and haven't had a chance to redo the front end under an Influx/Grafana environment...
Cheers
Ed

Hi @Joe Moer,
Here is the main info screen I use on the cell phone, a little truncated, but its just status lights that are cut off at the bottom of the page:

And a similar content, but different layout when viewed on PC:

The setup has got quite involved, with parameters specifically written for each "main" piece of kit on the system:

Certain pieces of kit are SOC controlled, others are controlled by availability of sunlight power, others are solar timed and more often than not, a combination the available options is used to get the best/most out of what energy is available at any given moment - There are also a couple of cute little things I have incorporated to keep the loads below the nominal 3kw mark - This isn't out of necessity, but I am not wild about inverter wear and tear mounting up (It can handle 5kw with a 10kw surge, plus I have a 2nd that I can parallel it with if I need to, but why should I, if I can keep loads in tow automatically?).. One of these tricks is that when a heavy load turns on by available power, other loads are turned off... ie when the dishwasher hits the 2kw heating cycle, deep freeze, air compressor etc are barred from starting and if they are running, they are shut down immediately until the high demand is over....
Here below is a fairly complex parameter screen, namely for the DeepFreeze - It has 3 temperature bands based on day/night and excess power availability, with the option of offsetting day and night times depending on your needs, it also takes care of power failures, checking the SOC and economising power usage when there is no mains power to fall back onto by shifting to the "night temperature" bandwidth... (Oh yes, the system is both Lead Acid and LiFe friendly, with control being selectable from either SOC or Battery Voltage governing...):
 

 
Amongst other features (beyond just turning on fridges, pumps, compressors and washing machines etc) that I have written into the system are:
Luminescence detection (used for determining maximum solar power availability on the fly) SOC control based on reported SOC from inverter OR direct SOC from the Pylon batteries(with 4x Pylons in the system, SOC switching can be fine tuned to within .25%) Monitoring of Inverter Output and the ability to warn users of heavy usage Switching of Inverter modes, be it charger source or inverter mode proper remotely Setting of utility charge current remotely Automatic security lighting based on SOC and solar timers Water preheating based on excess power availability, this heated water is then fed into gas geysers for final heating if required - 8 stage multi load purely resistive element, temperature and power availability controlled... System messaging and control via Telegram alerts to control remotely as well as be notified of urgent system items. Telegram control of external Lighting Control of auto start diesel generator - This only starts when there is a mains failure and batteries are nearing depletion - The system then puts the inverter into eco mode, switches to utility and solar charging, sets the charge current, then monitors SOC until it is within bounds... It then shuts the gennie down, switches to battery, sets charge/inverter/everything back to "normal" mode... (All modes, currents, SOC's etc are user configurable) 433mhz(keeloq) remote key fob control for security lighting or whatever grabs my fancy (currently only controlling lighting but can be easily expanded to turn on equipment as I need) - this is specific to remote control fob user, per button or combination of remote buttons pressed.... Timer controlled "smart charger" - if load shedding is scheduled, and SOC is a bit low to carry through due to inclement weather, there is a "smart charger mode" that can be timer enabled to charge the batteries prior to the shed happening - Modes etc are similar to the auto start gennie enviro, but take advantage of the lower cost of mains charging rather than diesel charging if possible (automatically going back to preset running inverter defaults once the event is past)... Along with probably a hell of a lot more that doesn't spring to mind at the moment!
@lupasha -
All of this is ostensibly wifi based, running on either Tasmotized Sonoffs or custom written 8266 wifi units... As to Home Assistant, I am clueless - this is all running running on a pi4-4gb with a 16gb mem card that is hooked to my inverter, running Node Red as a controller enviro with all the dangly bits reporting in via MQTT(Mosquitto) - CPU usage on the Pi4 hovers around 20 to 30%, so it is far from stressed... Data collection and trending is done with EmonCMS, only because I started with it a few years back and haven't had a chance to redo the front end under an Influx/Grafana environment...
Cheers
Ed

A thought on your inter-battery connections....
Flatten 2 or 3 pieces of 1/2" copper pipe, drill them to suit your terminal bolt sizes, and use 2 or 3 flattened pieces sandwiched between each battery as interconnects... Unless I am mistaken, it looks like a piece of galv plated mild steel pipe that you are using there in the mix(if it is, replace it with copper)... I also agree that the interconnect wires are a bit thin... I, personally, steer clear of crimped ends as well, anywhere near any possible corrosive vapours where it comes to batteries particularly... They are quick to put together, but should any corrosion take place, they fail under high current and are a pain to replace later (read that as during a blackout when 3 of 4 batteries are still charged but the one that is solidly connected to your inverter is flat)...
Don't forget to add a protection breaker at each battery positive to allow it to be isolated from the bank .....
There are many myths surrounding battery interconnections, best practice is ultimately to star connect them with equal length/thickness cables, the goal is to have terminal voltages as close as is possible under charge and load... As long as chemistry matches, you should be ok...
Cheers
E

Hi @phalaborwa
The system you have put together there is fine for lighter loads and a few very short term surge loads - At 12v, the losses add up quickly!
But all is not lost - Try and get away from pumping water until it is an emergency - The inverter would be better spent running lighting and small loads, such as tv/sound system etc - the creature comforts that make "no power" bearable.
Instead of pumping water on demand, could you possibly install a header tank (unaware of your roof height and space)  - A small 200 or 500L tank, with a float valve to top it up when water pressure is available, which then gravity feeds your cisterns and showers - If you can get it to about 10m, that equates to around 1 bar of pressure, which will run the lower pressure gas geysers and be more than adequate to fill the toilet cisterns.... 10m sounds a challenge to get a tank to, but there are some easy tricks to doing it, even higher, even alone that barely break a sweat to get it done.... (Takes more effort to dig the holes for the base posts.) Also, if the cisterns are taking a very long time to fill, possibly ream the openings of the float valve a little larger(Or is your piping caked with lime perhaps) - I did this when I installed my grey water flushing system - The orifii were opened from about 2mm to around 5mm dia, as the grey header tank sits at barely 4m altitude - Cistern filling takes little over a minute....
As to running different Ah rated batteries in parallel, I do NOT agree with the previous posters, on the proviso that the chemistry/style of batteries are similar - ie do not mix flooded batteries with AGM etc - if your deep cycles are all flooded cell lead acid, of similar chemistry, they are compatible, the charge/discharge curves are close enough to be similar, and they should cohabit quite cheerfully - One thing that I would recommend, would be the addition of a good old 15A(even an AC one) circuit breaker on the positive pole of each battery before it goes into the main positive buss line - Should a battery short a cell by dropping a plate or for some other reason, the reverse current supplied by the other batteries could amount to enough to cause quite a bit of damage, to say the least. In a perfect world, each battery should have leads the same total length to the buss cable, so allowing each battery to be at as similar a voltage as possible during its charge/discharge process. With dissimilar rated batteries, small over/underages will occur but if you maintain the similar lengths as short as is conveniently possible and the buss cable/bar as large a sectional area as is possible, these over/unders should be relatively negligible....
I no longer have a header tank that I use for potable water, but what I have done, to minimize pump on/off cycling, is to add some really basic air accumulators on the pump output line(referred to above as pressure tanks) - they are simple, work well, and are virtually indestructible. Simply put, take any airtight, corrosion resistant cylinder(Old Stainless Beer keg, Old Ali CO2 extinguisher), invert it, screw in an adequately sized T piece, and plumb it into your pressure line on the outlet of the pressure pump. The idea is to trap an air cushion in there that the water pump pressurizes when it is running - Set your pressures on your pump(if you can) to come on as low as possible and to stop pumping at as high a pressure as is possible - The accumulated pressure in the cylinder will amount to around 50% of pressurized volume, sometimes a bit more, of pressurized feed to the house, before the pump has to kick in again... Not only does this save quite a bit of inverter load (getting the pump moving takes a fair whack), but also lengthens the lifespan of the pump quite considerably in my experience. One could even place these homebrew accumulators at various locations that are convenient along the pipe - I have one 20L unit close to my kitchen and one close to the bathroom on the external walls.... The downside of them is that about every 3 months or so, you will need to turn off the water pressure/pumps and open a tap or valve that is at a lower physical height than the accumulator, to drain any excess water and allow atmospheric air to take it's place (you will notice it is required quite easily, the pump starts more often than it should) - The air does tend to dissolve into the water over time and the trapped air volume tends to decrease... but that is a small inconvenience overall...
As to running your 2kw water element on the inverter - I wouldn't, certainly not on a 12v Inverter and definitely not on the one you have in the picture! (without seeing the exact specs for your unit, if made of chinesium, they are usually rated and labelled at their maximum surge power, not their running average maximum - 4kw surge rated inverters are normally around 2.2 to 2.5kw highest nominal constant load. Even if the inverter is capable of supplying the power, your batteries wont take it for long - to put it in perspective, today, we had some good sun and I shunted about 1.6kw into my "dump load" geyser (gives mildly preheated water to my gas geysers) for around an hour, maybe a bit less.... Water temp in the tank went from 17 to 21.4C .... Its around 250L or so... A better solution for water heating is by using a waste oil fired heat exchanger system, but, like anything, the worse the fuel, the more the maintenance... (I won't get into that here)....
Hope this is of some help...
Cya
E
 
 

Pleasure.... Just went from Pb to Li Batteries this weekend.... This solar "forecasting" method is still doing its thing, very well in fact, not switching things in as much with the Li as with the Pb... But still useful nevertheless!!
The graphs I was using on the Pb now look a little "disconcerting" with the Li... The Li can soak up the "excess" power for charging way better... I was very gentle on the Pb, limiting charge and DOD on them to keep them healthy as possible for as long as possible... They are topping 2 to 3years now, still about an average of 80% health when checking them with a battery analyzer (28x638SMF in 7 strings of 4 giving about 490Ah total).... They have already found a good home and have gone a fair way into recovering the ZAR for the crossgrade... (Up yours, Eskom and ZAR!!) ....
Cheers
E
 

Faced with the costs of "Wonder Gadgets" to heat water from excess solar availability, I have come up with a different way of doing it....
I have already had, for some time now, a raspberry pi hooked to my inverter monitoring and controlling various bits and bobs around the place...
One of my greatest frustrations is the "lost solar" power that is often available during the average day.... This hot water system but one small addition I have made to try and utilize this unused power.
I put in an order to a local (EL) company for a triple 220V geyser element. It wasn't as pricey as I expected. The 3 elements are 500W/750W/1000W respectively, all on a single screw in, standard fitting (with an extra long thermostat pocket as well, which reaches well beyond the ends of the elements.).
The long and the short of it is, using my pi/mqtt/fabricobbled system, I can get a pretty close estimate of what inverter/solar power is available beyond the immediate consumption at any given point in time...
Using a small "Sonoff" wifi switch, hot wired to a quad 10A relay board, a bit of Node-Red and some head scratching,  the net result is, well fantastic!
If there's 500W excess available, turn on the 500W element... Same for 750/1kw.... Need more? Turn them on in combination, to step in 8 steps, 0W to 2.25Kw  as needed... The extra deep pocket for the thermostat got a Sonoff with a DS18B20 temp sensor to feed info back into the mqtt as well.... (Yep, you can series the elements as well with a bit more head scratching to lower the wattages still further, but lower than 500W is a waste of time as I have found out...)
Safety? Sure... Using the existing Thermostat pocket in the geyser, there's a good old fashioned clicky-clicky rod slotted in... Hooked up to the common neutral of the 3 elements... If he's unhappily hot, everybody shuts down...
And... It works... Well!
Total cost of the additional bits was less than ZAR1K, its been running for about 6 months now and barring some really crappy weather, the household of 4 has used very little gas in the geyser system over the period...
Cheerz...
E
 
 

Hot Water and DeepFreeze Graph... Today...
Yellow-Deep freeze on/Red Geyser Temp/Blue Deep freeze temp/Orange Geyser elements in use, ie just after 9am is step 1, just before 09h30 is step 2...etc...
 
Deep freeze temp is measured within 100mm of the top of the freezer, at -10C the bottom of the freezer is around -40 to -50 or thereabouts...
Green dot-Deep freeze compressor running/Blue border means under Auto System Control, the thermostat in the deep freeze is for safety/manual only...
E:3 denotes 3rd element step in geyser operation running at 933W Output...
Totalizer on top right is over the last 3 weeks, maybe a bit less, just for geyser itself....
I have set this up so that any kit that is turned on either manually or automatically beyond this available power then backs the geyser off a bit as required...
The Deep freeze also runs a bit harder under surplus conditions, bringing the temp further down... If I store hot, why not cold as well?
Cheers
E

Faced with the costs of "Wonder Gadgets" to heat water from excess solar availability, I have come up with a different way of doing it....
I have already had, for some time now, a raspberry pi hooked to my inverter monitoring and controlling various bits and bobs around the place...
One of my greatest frustrations is the "lost solar" power that is often available during the average day.... This hot water system but one small addition I have made to try and utilize this unused power.
I put in an order to a local (EL) company for a triple 220V geyser element. It wasn't as pricey as I expected. The 3 elements are 500W/750W/1000W respectively, all on a single screw in, standard fitting (with an extra long thermostat pocket as well, which reaches well beyond the ends of the elements.).
The long and the short of it is, using my pi/mqtt/fabricobbled system, I can get a pretty close estimate of what inverter/solar power is available beyond the immediate consumption at any given point in time...
Using a small "Sonoff" wifi switch, hot wired to a quad 10A relay board, a bit of Node-Red and some head scratching,  the net result is, well fantastic!
If there's 500W excess available, turn on the 500W element... Same for 750/1kw.... Need more? Turn them on in combination, to step in 8 steps, 0W to 2.25Kw  as needed... The extra deep pocket for the thermostat got a Sonoff with a DS18B20 temp sensor to feed info back into the mqtt as well.... (Yep, you can series the elements as well with a bit more head scratching to lower the wattages still further, but lower than 500W is a waste of time as I have found out...)
Safety? Sure... Using the existing Thermostat pocket in the geyser, there's a good old fashioned clicky-clicky rod slotted in... Hooked up to the common neutral of the 3 elements... If he's unhappily hot, everybody shuts down...
And... It works... Well!
Total cost of the additional bits was less than ZAR1K, its been running for about 6 months now and barring some really crappy weather, the household of 4 has used very little gas in the geyser system over the period...
Cheerz...
E
 
 

Hot Water and DeepFreeze Graph... Today...
Yellow-Deep freeze on/Red Geyser Temp/Blue Deep freeze temp/Orange Geyser elements in use, ie just after 9am is step 1, just before 09h30 is step 2...etc...
 
Deep freeze temp is measured within 100mm of the top of the freezer, at -10C the bottom of the freezer is around -40 to -50 or thereabouts...
Green dot-Deep freeze compressor running/Blue border means under Auto System Control, the thermostat in the deep freeze is for safety/manual only...
E:3 denotes 3rd element step in geyser operation running at 933W Output...
Totalizer on top right is over the last 3 weeks, maybe a bit less, just for geyser itself....
I have set this up so that any kit that is turned on either manually or automatically beyond this available power then backs the geyser off a bit as required...
The Deep freeze also runs a bit harder under surplus conditions, bringing the temp further down... If I store hot, why not cold as well?
Cheers
E

With the average and reasonably well planned solar setup, there should be an excess of solar power on a reasonable to well lit day.
This actual "excess" power is hard to determine and goes to waste, once batteries are full, the fridge is cold, etc etc etc, the system then starts drawing less from the panels via one means or another, waiting for load conditions to change... How do you know when, and how much, can be loaded onto your inverter at this point? Remember, this "point" that I refer to, is a dynamic point - This is what makes it tricky - Nasty things like clouds, mist, dust, sun angle, to name but a few, move our available solar target around quite a bit.... Now add to this, the deep freezer cutting in at seemingly random periods, the fridge playing games with the inverter whenever someone visits for a "cold one", and the problem actually starts to get quite "tricky"....
But, it is actually quite simple to see what you have available at any given time - You have to throw a bit of hardware at it, unfortunately, but we are not talking about a big pile of lightning soluble silicon - It is, at best, 3 small components (or sets thereof) that you need in addition to each bank of oriented panels - ie, N panels all at same inclination, 1 set components, E panels at a particular inclination, another 1 set of components, and so on ....
Disclaimer: Note the Forum Title - Home Automation - This post assumes you have some form of home automation in place and working, and you are monitoring and controlling your household in some way already....
The components needed per Bank of Panels:
1xSonoff Basic Flashed with Tasmota, 1xADS1115 Ad Converter hooked to it, 2x Resistors to act as a voltage divider, 1x Tiny little solar cell, match your Resistors to divide the voltage to slightly less than the maximum acceptable input on the ADS1115.
Hook the above together, (There are plenty of internet tutorials to do it.) and get the numbers feeding back from the Sonoff/ADS onto your wifi network and into your logging system...
Next, put the little "metering panel" in the least advantaged spot on your array of choice(Last lit, first shadowed), parallel with, and at the same inclination of the panels themselves - this is important!
Now start watching the numbers, recording them if you can... There is just going to be too much data to do it properly on the fly, but it isnt that complex...
As the sun strikes the metering panel, you will get digital values back from the metering sonoff corresponding to the solar intensity available - At any given time, these numbers indicate the actual solar available - Lets say the metering numbers max out to 28532 on a crystal clear day with no clouds(This is your max nominal value).  Later in the day, you check it out and the metering number is now 12555... That means that at that point in time, under those specific atmospheric conditions, you are getting 12555/28532, ie around 50% of the maximum available power for that particular meter, and as such, for that particular bank of panels that it is associated with...
Does it work? Definitely yes...
Is it accurate? Reasonably so, I have been running my system with one of these on the main bank for around a year and it has allowed me to "forecast" what I can load onto the inverter very nicely.
Calibration: This can be tricky and requires patience - Well worth doing to get the best out of your system that you can.
To do the calibration, you need to bear in mind that it is best done when the batteries are fairly low in SOC and not being charged at maximum allowable current as set by your inverter parameters - This means that all available power from the panels is being used at that particular moment in time.
Look at the power being delivered by your panels - Lets say its 3450W - Look at the numbers from the solar meter - Lets say it is, for example, 18505 -
Now, open your calculator and do some maths - 18505/28532 = 0.65 ie 65% of total max solar availability - We also know now that 65% of total availability is 3450W... therefore the max we would nominally get from the bank is around 100/65 *3450 ie 5307W .... Now look at the spec of your mppt/inverter .... Although the panels can supply the power, will the inverter or charger limit what is available - If so, use the lowest limit under these circumstances...
Real World Application:
The sun's shining, the batteries are full, the beer is cold.... The panels are putting out 800W,.... It's midday... There are no clouds... The metering system says 26222...
This means that at that particular moment in time, the solar power availability is: 26222/28532 ie 0.92 or 92%... The power that is available from the panel bank is .92 x 5307, ie 4877W .... But hey, our inverter is only capable of 4500W, so in total, we have 4500 less the 800 we are already using.... So we have an additional 3.7Kw we can draw for something useful.... Time to automate your geyser, aircon, fish pond, pool pump, irrigation system, grey water recycling.... And let it use the power that would otherwise just be ignored.....
This is NOT a theoretical scenario, I am running my system in this manner and I have found that my solar harvest has dramatically improved by doing so... To do the switching manually, however, is not practical, it does need a home auto system to get the best out of it.... Especially with those pesky clouds......
Cheerz
Ed
Here is a section of graph as pulled 5 mins ago...
Legend:
Orange: Unused Solar/Blue: Used Solar/Red: Inverter Output/Purple: Inverter ACVA In/Light Blue line-Metering Estimate

Here's some food for thought:
I had an Axpert MKs  wired 3S 4P - 125VOc running for years.... No problem...
Took a bad, really bad, lightning hit, besides the rest of the place that was in ruins, the Axpert was stuffed too...
Bought a couple of 5Kw Kings put in... The first lasted a week, then the mppt packed up(First bit of decent sunshine since installed)... called suppliers, they told me to install the second one I had on hand still...
That lasted 48hrs, same problem... By this stage the first one had been replaced under warranty and I invited their techs over to come and inspect the site... No problems were found whatsoever, everything was within spec, except the batteries which are a bit long in the tooth...
Damage to the Kings was not spectacular... The MPPT's drivers' simply shorted out (straight through) and when they went into charge mode, the batteries pulled the panel voltage down below spec, causing the mppt ?relay? to disengage... After about 30sec, the relay would pull in and the cycle would start again....
The following morning, I rewired the panels to 2S 6P, installed the 3rd inverter now and held thumbs....
A few months down the line, things still running fine... The King is a reasonably nice inverter (Once you get the firmware up to date) ....
Downside of this - I had to get a separate mppt charger to use the E-W Panels as they are impossible to wire any other way than 3S, being 9 panels in total...(and no more parapet space to install another one)...
Upside to this - The King can handle up to a 5+5Kw surge for a few secs, where the MKs used to shit itself and bypass for the slightest reason.... I haven't needed to install the second King yet as my power requirements are still within a single unit's spec...
Cheers
E

With the average and reasonably well planned solar setup, there should be an excess of solar power on a reasonable to well lit day.
This actual "excess" power is hard to determine and goes to waste, once batteries are full, the fridge is cold, etc etc etc, the system then starts drawing less from the panels via one means or another, waiting for load conditions to change... How do you know when, and how much, can be loaded onto your inverter at this point? Remember, this "point" that I refer to, is a dynamic point - This is what makes it tricky - Nasty things like clouds, mist, dust, sun angle, to name but a few, move our available solar target around quite a bit.... Now add to this, the deep freezer cutting in at seemingly random periods, the fridge playing games with the inverter whenever someone visits for a "cold one", and the problem actually starts to get quite "tricky"....
But, it is actually quite simple to see what you have available at any given time - You have to throw a bit of hardware at it, unfortunately, but we are not talking about a big pile of lightning soluble silicon - It is, at best, 3 small components (or sets thereof) that you need in addition to each bank of oriented panels - ie, N panels all at same inclination, 1 set components, E panels at a particular inclination, another 1 set of components, and so on ....
Disclaimer: Note the Forum Title - Home Automation - This post assumes you have some form of home automation in place and working, and you are monitoring and controlling your household in some way already....
The components needed per Bank of Panels:
1xSonoff Basic Flashed with Tasmota, 1xADS1115 Ad Converter hooked to it, 2x Resistors to act as a voltage divider, 1x Tiny little solar cell, match your Resistors to divide the voltage to slightly less than the maximum acceptable input on the ADS1115.
Hook the above together, (There are plenty of internet tutorials to do it.) and get the numbers feeding back from the Sonoff/ADS onto your wifi network and into your logging system...
Next, put the little "metering panel" in the least advantaged spot on your array of choice(Last lit, first shadowed), parallel with, and at the same inclination of the panels themselves - this is important!
Now start watching the numbers, recording them if you can... There is just going to be too much data to do it properly on the fly, but it isnt that complex...
As the sun strikes the metering panel, you will get digital values back from the metering sonoff corresponding to the solar intensity available - At any given time, these numbers indicate the actual solar available - Lets say the metering numbers max out to 28532 on a crystal clear day with no clouds(This is your max nominal value).  Later in the day, you check it out and the metering number is now 12555... That means that at that point in time, under those specific atmospheric conditions, you are getting 12555/28532, ie around 50% of the maximum available power for that particular meter, and as such, for that particular bank of panels that it is associated with...
Does it work? Definitely yes...
Is it accurate? Reasonably so, I have been running my system with one of these on the main bank for around a year and it has allowed me to "forecast" what I can load onto the inverter very nicely.
Calibration: This can be tricky and requires patience - Well worth doing to get the best out of your system that you can.
To do the calibration, you need to bear in mind that it is best done when the batteries are fairly low in SOC and not being charged at maximum allowable current as set by your inverter parameters - This means that all available power from the panels is being used at that particular moment in time.
Look at the power being delivered by your panels - Lets say its 3450W - Look at the numbers from the solar meter - Lets say it is, for example, 18505 -
Now, open your calculator and do some maths - 18505/28532 = 0.65 ie 65% of total max solar availability - We also know now that 65% of total availability is 3450W... therefore the max we would nominally get from the bank is around 100/65 *3450 ie 5307W .... Now look at the spec of your mppt/inverter .... Although the panels can supply the power, will the inverter or charger limit what is available - If so, use the lowest limit under these circumstances...
Real World Application:
The sun's shining, the batteries are full, the beer is cold.... The panels are putting out 800W,.... It's midday... There are no clouds... The metering system says 26222...
This means that at that particular moment in time, the solar power availability is: 26222/28532 ie 0.92 or 92%... The power that is available from the panel bank is .92 x 5307, ie 4877W .... But hey, our inverter is only capable of 4500W, so in total, we have 4500 less the 800 we are already using.... So we have an additional 3.7Kw we can draw for something useful.... Time to automate your geyser, aircon, fish pond, pool pump, irrigation system, grey water recycling.... And let it use the power that would otherwise just be ignored.....
This is NOT a theoretical scenario, I am running my system in this manner and I have found that my solar harvest has dramatically improved by doing so... To do the switching manually, however, is not practical, it does need a home auto system to get the best out of it.... Especially with those pesky clouds......
Cheerz
Ed
Here is a section of graph as pulled 5 mins ago...
Legend:
Orange: Unused Solar/Blue: Used Solar/Red: Inverter Output/Purple: Inverter ACVA In/Light Blue line-Metering Estimate

Faced with the costs of "Wonder Gadgets" to heat water from excess solar availability, I have come up with a different way of doing it....
I have already had, for some time now, a raspberry pi hooked to my inverter monitoring and controlling various bits and bobs around the place...
One of my greatest frustrations is the "lost solar" power that is often available during the average day.... This hot water system but one small addition I have made to try and utilize this unused power.
I put in an order to a local (EL) company for a triple 220V geyser element. It wasn't as pricey as I expected. The 3 elements are 500W/750W/1000W respectively, all on a single screw in, standard fitting (with an extra long thermostat pocket as well, which reaches well beyond the ends of the elements.).
The long and the short of it is, using my pi/mqtt/fabricobbled system, I can get a pretty close estimate of what inverter/solar power is available beyond the immediate consumption at any given point in time...
Using a small "Sonoff" wifi switch, hot wired to a quad 10A relay board, a bit of Node-Red and some head scratching,  the net result is, well fantastic!
If there's 500W excess available, turn on the 500W element... Same for 750/1kw.... Need more? Turn them on in combination, to step in 8 steps, 0W to 2.25Kw  as needed... The extra deep pocket for the thermostat got a Sonoff with a DS18B20 temp sensor to feed info back into the mqtt as well.... (Yep, you can series the elements as well with a bit more head scratching to lower the wattages still further, but lower than 500W is a waste of time as I have found out...)
Safety? Sure... Using the existing Thermostat pocket in the geyser, there's a good old fashioned clicky-clicky rod slotted in... Hooked up to the common neutral of the 3 elements... If he's unhappily hot, everybody shuts down...
And... It works... Well!
Total cost of the additional bits was less than ZAR1K, its been running for about 6 months now and barring some really crappy weather, the household of 4 has used very little gas in the geyser system over the period...
Cheerz...
E
 
 

With the average and reasonably well planned solar setup, there should be an excess of solar power on a reasonable to well lit day.
This actual "excess" power is hard to determine and goes to waste, once batteries are full, the fridge is cold, etc etc etc, the system then starts drawing less from the panels via one means or another, waiting for load conditions to change... How do you know when, and how much, can be loaded onto your inverter at this point? Remember, this "point" that I refer to, is a dynamic point - This is what makes it tricky - Nasty things like clouds, mist, dust, sun angle, to name but a few, move our available solar target around quite a bit.... Now add to this, the deep freezer cutting in at seemingly random periods, the fridge playing games with the inverter whenever someone visits for a "cold one", and the problem actually starts to get quite "tricky"....
But, it is actually quite simple to see what you have available at any given time - You have to throw a bit of hardware at it, unfortunately, but we are not talking about a big pile of lightning soluble silicon - It is, at best, 3 small components (or sets thereof) that you need in addition to each bank of oriented panels - ie, N panels all at same inclination, 1 set components, E panels at a particular inclination, another 1 set of components, and so on ....
Disclaimer: Note the Forum Title - Home Automation - This post assumes you have some form of home automation in place and working, and you are monitoring and controlling your household in some way already....
The components needed per Bank of Panels:
1xSonoff Basic Flashed with Tasmota, 1xADS1115 Ad Converter hooked to it, 2x Resistors to act as a voltage divider, 1x Tiny little solar cell, match your Resistors to divide the voltage to slightly less than the maximum acceptable input on the ADS1115.
Hook the above together, (There are plenty of internet tutorials to do it.) and get the numbers feeding back from the Sonoff/ADS onto your wifi network and into your logging system...
Next, put the little "metering panel" in the least advantaged spot on your array of choice(Last lit, first shadowed), parallel with, and at the same inclination of the panels themselves - this is important!
Now start watching the numbers, recording them if you can... There is just going to be too much data to do it properly on the fly, but it isnt that complex...
As the sun strikes the metering panel, you will get digital values back from the metering sonoff corresponding to the solar intensity available - At any given time, these numbers indicate the actual solar available - Lets say the metering numbers max out to 28532 on a crystal clear day with no clouds(This is your max nominal value).  Later in the day, you check it out and the metering number is now 12555... That means that at that point in time, under those specific atmospheric conditions, you are getting 12555/28532, ie around 50% of the maximum available power for that particular meter, and as such, for that particular bank of panels that it is associated with...
Does it work? Definitely yes...
Is it accurate? Reasonably so, I have been running my system with one of these on the main bank for around a year and it has allowed me to "forecast" what I can load onto the inverter very nicely.
Calibration: This can be tricky and requires patience - Well worth doing to get the best out of your system that you can.
To do the calibration, you need to bear in mind that it is best done when the batteries are fairly low in SOC and not being charged at maximum allowable current as set by your inverter parameters - This means that all available power from the panels is being used at that particular moment in time.
Look at the power being delivered by your panels - Lets say its 3450W - Look at the numbers from the solar meter - Lets say it is, for example, 18505 -
Now, open your calculator and do some maths - 18505/28532 = 0.65 ie 65% of total max solar availability - We also know now that 65% of total availability is 3450W... therefore the max we would nominally get from the bank is around 100/65 *3450 ie 5307W .... Now look at the spec of your mppt/inverter .... Although the panels can supply the power, will the inverter or charger limit what is available - If so, use the lowest limit under these circumstances...
Real World Application:
The sun's shining, the batteries are full, the beer is cold.... The panels are putting out 800W,.... It's midday... There are no clouds... The metering system says 26222...
This means that at that particular moment in time, the solar power availability is: 26222/28532 ie 0.92 or 92%... The power that is available from the panel bank is .92 x 5307, ie 4877W .... But hey, our inverter is only capable of 4500W, so in total, we have 4500 less the 800 we are already using.... So we have an additional 3.7Kw we can draw for something useful.... Time to automate your geyser, aircon, fish pond, pool pump, irrigation system, grey water recycling.... And let it use the power that would otherwise just be ignored.....
This is NOT a theoretical scenario, I am running my system in this manner and I have found that my solar harvest has dramatically improved by doing so... To do the switching manually, however, is not practical, it does need a home auto system to get the best out of it.... Especially with those pesky clouds......
Cheerz
Ed
Here is a section of graph as pulled 5 mins ago...
Legend:
Orange: Unused Solar/Blue: Used Solar/Red: Inverter Output/Purple: Inverter ACVA In/Light Blue line-Metering Estimate

Faced with the costs of "Wonder Gadgets" to heat water from excess solar availability, I have come up with a different way of doing it....
I have already had, for some time now, a raspberry pi hooked to my inverter monitoring and controlling various bits and bobs around the place...
One of my greatest frustrations is the "lost solar" power that is often available during the average day.... This hot water system but one small addition I have made to try and utilize this unused power.
I put in an order to a local (EL) company for a triple 220V geyser element. It wasn't as pricey as I expected. The 3 elements are 500W/750W/1000W respectively, all on a single screw in, standard fitting (with an extra long thermostat pocket as well, which reaches well beyond the ends of the elements.).
The long and the short of it is, using my pi/mqtt/fabricobbled system, I can get a pretty close estimate of what inverter/solar power is available beyond the immediate consumption at any given point in time...
Using a small "Sonoff" wifi switch, hot wired to a quad 10A relay board, a bit of Node-Red and some head scratching,  the net result is, well fantastic!
If there's 500W excess available, turn on the 500W element... Same for 750/1kw.... Need more? Turn them on in combination, to step in 8 steps, 0W to 2.25Kw  as needed... The extra deep pocket for the thermostat got a Sonoff with a DS18B20 temp sensor to feed info back into the mqtt as well.... (Yep, you can series the elements as well with a bit more head scratching to lower the wattages still further, but lower than 500W is a waste of time as I have found out...)
Safety? Sure... Using the existing Thermostat pocket in the geyser, there's a good old fashioned clicky-clicky rod slotted in... Hooked up to the common neutral of the 3 elements... If he's unhappily hot, everybody shuts down...
And... It works... Well!
Total cost of the additional bits was less than ZAR1K, its been running for about 6 months now and barring some really crappy weather, the household of 4 has used very little gas in the geyser system over the period...
Cheerz...
E
 
 

Faced with the costs of "Wonder Gadgets" to heat water from excess solar availability, I have come up with a different way of doing it....
I have already had, for some time now, a raspberry pi hooked to my inverter monitoring and controlling various bits and bobs around the place...
One of my greatest frustrations is the "lost solar" power that is often available during the average day.... This hot water system but one small addition I have made to try and utilize this unused power.
I put in an order to a local (EL) company for a triple 220V geyser element. It wasn't as pricey as I expected. The 3 elements are 500W/750W/1000W respectively, all on a single screw in, standard fitting (with an extra long thermostat pocket as well, which reaches well beyond the ends of the elements.).
The long and the short of it is, using my pi/mqtt/fabricobbled system, I can get a pretty close estimate of what inverter/solar power is available beyond the immediate consumption at any given point in time...
Using a small "Sonoff" wifi switch, hot wired to a quad 10A relay board, a bit of Node-Red and some head scratching,  the net result is, well fantastic!
If there's 500W excess available, turn on the 500W element... Same for 750/1kw.... Need more? Turn them on in combination, to step in 8 steps, 0W to 2.25Kw  as needed... The extra deep pocket for the thermostat got a Sonoff with a DS18B20 temp sensor to feed info back into the mqtt as well.... (Yep, you can series the elements as well with a bit more head scratching to lower the wattages still further, but lower than 500W is a waste of time as I have found out...)
Safety? Sure... Using the existing Thermostat pocket in the geyser, there's a good old fashioned clicky-clicky rod slotted in... Hooked up to the common neutral of the 3 elements... If he's unhappily hot, everybody shuts down...
And... It works... Well!
Total cost of the additional bits was less than ZAR1K, its been running for about 6 months now and barring some really crappy weather, the household of 4 has used very little gas in the geyser system over the period...
Cheerz...
E
 
 

Faced with the costs of "Wonder Gadgets" to heat water from excess solar availability, I have come up with a different way of doing it....
I have already had, for some time now, a raspberry pi hooked to my inverter monitoring and controlling various bits and bobs around the place...
One of my greatest frustrations is the "lost solar" power that is often available during the average day.... This hot water system but one small addition I have made to try and utilize this unused power.
I put in an order to a local (EL) company for a triple 220V geyser element. It wasn't as pricey as I expected. The 3 elements are 500W/750W/1000W respectively, all on a single screw in, standard fitting (with an extra long thermostat pocket as well, which reaches well beyond the ends of the elements.).
The long and the short of it is, using my pi/mqtt/fabricobbled system, I can get a pretty close estimate of what inverter/solar power is available beyond the immediate consumption at any given point in time...
Using a small "Sonoff" wifi switch, hot wired to a quad 10A relay board, a bit of Node-Red and some head scratching,  the net result is, well fantastic!
If there's 500W excess available, turn on the 500W element... Same for 750/1kw.... Need more? Turn them on in combination, to step in 8 steps, 0W to 2.25Kw  as needed... The extra deep pocket for the thermostat got a Sonoff with a DS18B20 temp sensor to feed info back into the mqtt as well.... (Yep, you can series the elements as well with a bit more head scratching to lower the wattages still further, but lower than 500W is a waste of time as I have found out...)
Safety? Sure... Using the existing Thermostat pocket in the geyser, there's a good old fashioned clicky-clicky rod slotted in... Hooked up to the common neutral of the 3 elements... If he's unhappily hot, everybody shuts down...
And... It works... Well!
Total cost of the additional bits was less than ZAR1K, its been running for about 6 months now and barring some really crappy weather, the household of 4 has used very little gas in the geyser system over the period...
Cheerz...
E