Some needed help with my CT connections with solar

[attozzie]

So here’s my situation. I’ve been using my Sense meter for over a year and I’ve been super happy with the system. I had a new solar panel system installed late last year which is doing great. I bought an extra set of CTs so my Sense system can read my solar production which it does very well. But here’s where it gets kind of tricky. I will let everyone know how my set up is. I have a main breaker panel which is what’s shown in the first two pictures. Then I have a sub panel that feeds directly under the house to the sub panel inside my home that houses 95% of my breakers.

Initially I had my main CTs reading my energy usage usage attached as shown in the first picture. I could see my real time energy usage on my Sense app along with my solar production. However, I wasn’t able to see any power being drawn from the breakers located above the CTs because the CTs were below the breakers which meant they weren’t able to see any power usage above them. I get that… So I decided to put the main CTs above the breakers where my incoming power feed comes in from the meter as shown in the second picture. This way I can see the entire power usage including power being used by the breakers in the main panel. I wasn’t concerned about reading them before because these breakers were being used by my main HVAC system which I rarely use anymore due to my recent additions of mini split systems.

The third picture is where I have my CTs that are located in the solar disconnect panel located to the right of the main panel. Again, I’m able to see my solar production perfectly with this set up.

However, now I can’t see my energy usage in real time on my Sense app or on the Sense website like I did before when I had my main CTs hooked up in the first picture. I assume the reason why my app shows zero energy usage is because my solar production is outweighing my energy usage which would explain why. Of course things change once the sun goes down and my energy usage is more than my solar production. Then I can see my energy usage on my app in the right hand corner.

So is this normal? Or should I still be able to see my main energy usage on my app even if my solar production is more than what I’m currently using?

[kevin1]

Not sure what might be affecting your numbers, but a working solar install shows Total Consumption (not net consumption after solar), plus Solar Production. When Solar goes higher than Total Consumption you still see both.

Seems like your CT placements are OK, but between setup routines and changes of CT placement, some thing might have gotten confused. I would contact support, but between today and tomorrow, I would try two things. 1) looking at the monitor data and 2) a brief power cycle of your Sense.

Looking at the monitor data in Settings > My Home > Sense Monitor might help you figure out what’s happening:

[attozzie]

Update: I decided to reconfigure my solar CT setup on my iPhone Sense app. Low and behold, everything is working like it should. I didn’t move any CT set. All I did was rerun the solar setup on the app. Best I can guess is something got messed up when I moved the main CTs from the bottom to the top. I’m just happy the app is showing my data like it should.

[kevin1]

@attozzie, probably reversed one or more of the CTs WRT original directions or directions of corresponding solar CTs. Glad to see setup fixed it.