Solar System Production and Consumption (self consumption vs import)

[psnodgrass]

I would like go beyond overall number of production and consumption numbers to see more more granular information that would help users to use energy at desired times for their setup.

For production, I would like to see how much of the solar production was consumed at home vs. exported to the grid.

For consumption, I would like to see how much was self-produced and how much was imported from the grid.

Sense should have this data already, so the request is to make this available and visually useful. Attached is an example for daily usage and billing cycle (yes, this system is oversized, awesome, and not mine). For me personally, the goal would be to consume locally produced clean energy as much as possible and use mixed/dirty energy from the grid as little as possible. For others, it might be about when to charge their EV, or when to release battery energy on to the grid to provide clean energy to neighbors.

[MikeekiM]

Hi @psnodgrass… Nice suggestion… I appreciate data as well, and this is a good refinement of the data that Sense already collects (as you mentioned)…

I know this isn’t at the granularity that your charts show, but I believe “self-consumption” is represented at a summary level in the solar trending area… As you can see, I believe that my screen below indicates that I have had 33% self-consumption for this month (so far).

That number changes and adjusts based on the scope of the screen you are on (i.e., daily, weekly, monthly).

[psnodgrass]

Thank you MikeekiM. Well now I feel foolish. This is pretty close to what I was looking for and solves my immediate problem. I don’t yet have solar so I haven’t had this in my app/web interface and I was looking with a family member at their setup and neither of us found this.

The Sense graphs and data provide the same info I’m looking for, but they don’t highlight what I am trying to encourage, which is using energy when it is cleanest. I also think there is a lot of potential here in understanding where the energy actually goes when it leaves your house and goes to the grid. In your example, the 111.3 kWh that went to the “grid” actually powered your neighbors’ houses and resulted in less power called in from the grid. How cool would it be if we could get a notice that today, your panels provided 33% of your home’s energy and also provided 10% of the electricity used by 6 of your neighbors?

[MikeekiM]

Yes, that would certainly be an interesting view… But that would require a lot of data that is not available to Sense (unless we are only talking about Sense enabled households)…

That said, I generate so little energy with my tiny 3.3kW solar system, I am confident that all of it is being used by my neighbors…

You are clearly environmentally conscious… I am surprised that you are not yet on solar energy!

[psnodgrass]

I’ve been trying to get on solar for a long while and finally did it with my first house that is now a rental property.

In the house where I live, we are a net zero household (through offsets) and are trying to get as close to actual zero ASAP. I did Geothermal heating and cooling first since our roof is horrible for solar. Thanks to Geothermal, we reduced our home’s greenhouse gas emissions by 43% from 2019 to 2020. And with most of our energy now on electricity instead of gas, it’s easier to monitor with Sense and easy to offset with wind and solar energy from Arcadia Power.