For those of us that have solar and Sense set up to monitor that, does Sense identify the loads on the portion of the load that comes directly off the solar? For our kWh totals in the Trends section, does Sense include the kWh directly from solar?
@ch6to66,
Which loads “come directly off solar” for you ? Power used by the optimizers and inverter, or microinverters ? In my system the output of the inverter is directly back-fed into the breaker box and mains via a 240V breaker.
Our setup is the same as yours, kevin1. So my ? is will the power from the solar system inverter that goes directly out into loads of the house be tracked and analyzed by Sense. Yes, Sense has two clamps on the leads from the inverter to the breaker in the main panel. Will Sense analyze the loads (say washer and air conditioner) that at times might take power directly from the inverter and not through the utility mains, and also maintain running kWh totals of the power being used directly from the inverter and add those totals to what is in Trends (which i bet is only from the utility mains). I think the answer to each of the ?s is “no”.
@ch6to66,
Ket’s put it this way. Sense Usage is the total usage in your house, Solar or no Solar. Any contribution from Solar Production for in-house appliances, etc. has to also flow through mains and the Sense Usage clamps into your house, and will get analyzed for device signatures by Sense. Put differently Sense Usage minus Solar Production should match up with your net meter energy if you are able to look at it on an hourly basis.
I’ve been doing a fairly detailed analysis on how Sense energy data compares to my net meter and solar supplier data here, if you are interested in how it all looks:
Maybe I’m missing something… Power could flow from the inverter, be seen by the Sense solar clamps, then go onto the mains bus bars. From there, the power could flow directly to one or more loads in the house without ever going towards the utility and the Sense mains clamps.
So it sounds like what you’re saying is both sets of clamps contribute to usage and analysis.
I did look at your graphs for a few minutes - it will take quite a bit more than that to even begin to understand it! You probably have quite a background in statistical analysis - wow!
@ch6to66,
I have to offer an apology. It’s been a while since the install - no way to meter the energy flowing into the house directly unless you have a circuit-by-circuit set of CTs, like a TED. Sense actually sits on the incoming power lines so it actually sees the same thing as your net meter, but then does the fancy (and fast math) to reconstruct the power flowing into the house, using the solar and incoming power data. Unless you have something very weird, energy flow from your solar connection and into the individual house circuits.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.