Looks like you are set to go with the same kind of configuration most Sense Solar users have. I’m guessing you’ll some weirdness when your battery starts delivering energy when viewing the Power Meter.
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Now that you mention it, I’ll find out tonight for sure. I run on battery form 11pm until morning never letting them drain under 20%.
I’ll check tonight around midnight and post my findings.
Good catch.
What I’m expecting to happen is that the Sense Total consumption will be partially or completely hidden by your battery.
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I’m on battery right now, and the Sense is reading my usage fully.
I was leaning to agree with your thoughts man, honestly. More than anything I was thinking that my usage was going to drop to 0 while on battery. But as unexpected as this is, I’m very happy this is the case, because this is why I wanted the sense.
Switching gears, I want to extend my gratitude to all of you, that tried to help me figure this out. Thank you all very much.
Hopefully all the struggle will help more individuals with similar setups.
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I know this is from a year ago, but have a question for you on where you placed the physical sense unit, and where you connected it to for power. The reason I am asking, my Gateway 2 is not close to my main panel, so trying to determine 1) where to place it and 2) where to get power. If I place it near to the gateway, not sure where I would power it from.
I placed my Sense units in a medium size junction box under my gateway. Then added conduit for ac power to the J-box. The sense antenna is mounted in the same junction box.
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Also @dennis, I see you have ethernet and another cable connected. Is that second cable going to the RS485 port? If so, what kind of data are you getting from it, and are you polling it just from a terminal connection?
I think what you are seeing is the communication cable back to the powerwalls (2).
Cheers
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There is a hardwire Ethernet to the gateway and additional current sensors related to my load controller.
I’ve figured out where the main CTs would connect in the gateway, Tesla pulled new mains from the gateway to my house panel. I’m curious if what I show in the picture here is where I need to connect to get solar+PW data?
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The county finally inspected the install, so I was able to install the monitor device. As it turns out, the ‘solar+pw’ item I had thought was correct, was not. Those wires only provide the energy to the house that is necessary at that point in time. I.e. - solar would show the exact watts as the house was using. I put my sense solar probes on the two inverter incoming wires, and that seems to be a closer match. It does not match what the Tesla app tells me, Sense seems to be about 1k-1.5k off at peak times. That could be the power the inverters are using in the conversion process.
The pink and black wire coming off the bottom part go directly to my inside panel main inputs. However, the main Sense monitoring clips here do not match even close to what my house is actually using. For instance, right now sense shows 300watts, where Tesla and Emporia are showing 1.2kw. I may move those sensors to where I had thought to put my solar+pw probes… Still not there yet.
Follow-up:
Made another attempt, and I believe I have sorted the house usage inaccuracies. Another picture showing the current connections.
What was strange is that I had to invert one of the main sensors so it was facing opposite the other sensor. The arrows are pointing in opposite directions, but it is monitoring very close to what tesla and emporia register.
I had kind of hoped to get an aggregate of what both solar and the powerwalls were doing, as these would indicate ‘generated & stored’ energy versus grid usage. But, I suppose this could provide another data point of how my house would perform if it was only solar powered.
I’m about to give up on the sense, as it is just providing redundant information. The probes work fine some of the time, then give weird readings during peak, where Sense decides my usage and solar production match. Then, later in the day (once solar goes to negative), then it seems to reset and show correctly again. Not sure it’s worth the trouble trying to track this down.
Sense shows I am using and generating 12.9kw:
Tesla (HA) is showing the correct data (figuring the solar production difference is what the inverters are consuming to convert):
@matt2 have you seen this post I did on the clamp locations with a PowerWall? It might solve your issue.
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My utility didn’t approve Tesla’s newer equipment, so I got the Gateway 2 and two of the separate inverters. I did get the tesla panels though, so at least there is that.
Just trying to decipher your connections, you just have the solar probes in the Tesla gateway?
My gateway is about 75’ from my main panel, so that’s not really an option. Trying to put all connections into the gateway, which should be feasible as I have a whole-house backup setup.
What’s strange is that my house and solar probes provide accurate data until sometime during the day where it gets all screwed up, usually when solar is at peak. I might give it one more shot, if that doesn’t work, I’ll stick with what I have already and give up on the sense.
My solar clamps are in my inverter (the box above my PowerWall+). If you can’t/don’t want to do that, you can probably just put the solar clamps in the gateway, but the gateway doesn’t discern between solar output or PowerWall output; it all looks like solar (except that when the battery charges [from the grid?] it will subtract from the solar/grid (depending which is doing the charging).
My gateway has AC power coming from the inverters into the gateway breakers (left side of pic). That is also where Tesla has their monitoring clamps setup. I seem to get proper solar monitoring, as I’m clamped on the same cables as Tesla. It’s the house usage monitoring that is having issues. From the gateway, I have the connections that go straight to my main panel mains, but the clamps do not register correctly when attached. I may have to try clamping in a few different places there, as the gateway box is quite populated and full.
Right now it is working great. It is a mostly cloudy day, hence the roller coaster graph, but it is reading solar and house usage perfectly. I’ll post another picture when it switches.
And so, today, I am getting:
I think I need to switch the cables around. The cabling is pretty tight, so a Sense just may not be in the cards.
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I’ve been trying to get my Sense reading my solar/powerwall setup for about two weeks now. The support team is waiting for me to get the actual wiring diagram from the installer, but while I’m waiting, I thought I’d reach out.
I came across this thread before while trying to trouble shoot, and thought my setup was similar to what was listed here as working, but I keep getting very inaccurate readings.
Tried a few different placements, and switching directions around on the sensors, but nothing has worked yet.
Hoping someone here can take a look at my setup and point me in the right direction so I’m working on some limited potential solutions instead of just guessing.
Image of current placement is here:
(never mind, I can’t include links in my posts yet.)
For example right now we have a Red Flag warning, so the Powerwall is charging from the grid, and Sense is showing that as 3.3k of solar production, but it’s the Powerwall charging, as the sun is just coming up and production is zero.
Now that the sun is out, it shows solar production that’s a negative value of actual production, presume if I flip the correct CT that will reverse to positive production then? Looks like now that the post is approved I can include the image link.
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