How Can Your Solar Setup Benefit From Home Assistant?

[@alisterg3582]

Great topic and not quite as scary as perhaps portrayed - Solar got me into Home Assistant as I just couldn’t do the things I wanted to do with disparate systems that made up my solar environment. Now it tracks/ controls everything in my house and is a single app replacing 10 or so ecosystem apps like SolarEdge, MyEnergi, Octopus, Hue, Ring, Tado, Tuya and the like. Oliver’s channel and videos are a great resource. It’s not that scary or a hugely massive learning curve - just jump in and do it folks.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Love it! ❤️

[@nicflanagan6662]

Greetings Gary, In 2020, during "Lock Down," I taught myself AutoCad with a view to designing & building a Shepherd's Hut. That in itself was daunting, but had a positive outcome. After watching this program, you asked a few of the key questions i was asking myself. I almost feel ready now to dip my toe in the "home assistant" pool. Just need capex approval 😅😅

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Hey Nic - I think we all had the chance to learn something new during the COVID lockdowns - well done on getting to grips with AutoCad - quite a learning curve, I could imagine! Assuming you get your CAPEX approval, I'd love to hear how you get on :-)

[@AndrewJonesMcGuire]

I'd like to point out the one important point that was overlooked in this interview - Home Assistant prides itself on being local first as much as is possible, and the whole point of Year of the Voice, isn't just implementing vouce control into Home Assistant - that was basically already doable with the various existing voice assistants you can buy - the point is to have LOCAL voice control. Which we now do. If Home Assistant did look into AI control next year, it would again be something they looked to try to do entirely on device, rather than relying on a cloud service.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

A local approach will certainly help foster a more reliable platform - agreed!

[@notjustageek]

Home assistant can truely revolutionise solar/battery integration. We've got a number of automations to take advantage of our current tariff (Intelligent Octopus) and the saving sessions. I think the greatest benefit is the ease of changing automations to suit new needs (for example when using flux or other tariffs, prioritising solar import or export etc). I've got a few videos about it if you are interested (quality is no where near yours atm 🤣)

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Hi there! Thanks for commenting - I'll take a look at your channel... :-)

[@Ben-gm9lo]

Gary, thanks so much for sharing this chap's channel and his amazing content. We are a couple of months into using our system and I still can't control it as well as I would like. HA might be the answer!

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Yeah. Oliver is a real expert on all this! 😀 Glad the video was useful to you!

[@michaelblackmore883]

Hi Gary, I am with you on this and something like you described in your introduction would be very welcome. I hope that, by the time we reassess our solar options next year, Octopus will have developed something like this which will integrate the parts of the system ( solar, battery, import/export, tariffs etc) so that a set and forget option will be easy to set up and need minimal maintenance. I regard technology developments as tools that should help me to deal with problems more easily and efficiently, so often they seem to be occupations! Good to se you back. Mike

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Thanks Mike - yeah, a fair amount of travel with my day job of late! Whilst I’m on Octopus Energy’s Agile tariff in the UK, I’m looking for a solution that can charge my battery during the cheapest import times, and perhaps also automatically discharge during profitable times as well (eg Demand Flexibility Service). I’m trying out myenergyoptimiser.co.uk/ at the moment and will report on progress in part 3 of my tariff strategy series 😀 For me, reliability is super-important.

[@rkrbar]

Hi Gary My home assistant green arrived yesterday, and have been fiddling around with it since. Even managing to lock myself out for a while this afternoon ! It’s not as mentioned plug and play but I got it as a winter project with the aim of perhaps automating charge schedules. So far have managed to get my Givenergy inverter data in the dashboard. Going to try to find a power flow card and see if I can get that running.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Hi there Jack - thanks for commenting about your early experiences with HA Green. I'd love to hear how you get on with it, as it seems this is HA's way to head towards the mass market! :-) All the best with it!

[@geoffreycoan]

Powerflow plus for your dashboard is very good. I’ve tried others for my GivEnergy system but prefer this one

[@rkrbar]

@@geoffreycoan thanks for the tip. As I mentioned still very new to this, and it’s quite a learning curve. I assume this is available in HACS ?

[@GaryDoesSolar]

@@geoffreycoan Thanks - that'll help folks who are thinking about using HA 👍

[@jbmurphy4]

I used to use home assistant running on a raspberry pi to monitor my solar thermal hot water tank temperature & control my gas boiler accordingly. I stopped using it because my cheap SD card in my pi failed. An SSD drive from a PC is far more reliable as was used here.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

That's good advice - thanks for highlighting. I guess it's an easy mistake that people could make!

[@roguebullet4220]

Thank you. Great episode, lots of helpful info.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

That's really great feedback - thank you! :-)

[@whatmust8146]

Thank you for sharing. Thumb up on this video. Without this info. this will be a mystery to many of us. I have always wanted to monitor, control the solar system that i set up myself but confused with the arrays of options and the best way to do this. This H.Assistant does way more than just the solar stuff. It is well worth the effort to learn this.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

You’re most welcome 🙏 And if you live in the UK, have a GivEnergy battery and an Octopus tariff, my latest video looks at a service called MyEO - which is simple to setup and runs automatically with almost zero-intervention 👍🏻

[@d.b.cooper1]

This is cool. But on a more basic level as solar becomes more mainstream more & more people will want automated features at the most basic level e.g. switching octopus tariffs between winter & summer automatically twice a year, basic monitoring for issues that exceed expected parameters & more. I say this as someone who got solar/battery installed for my not so tech savvy parents & whilst I'm happy to spend time learning everything as I'm responsible & we just got it installed. I live in the city a long train/drive away & would love a 'fit & forget system'. I dread the idea of constantly monitoring the system & wider octopus rates etc & switching tariffs when needed or playing around with battery charge/discharge settings in the future. The average consumer leads a busy life like myself as you become more mainstream. I'd pay someone £50 a year to do the most basic monitoring & tarrif adjustments. It could be done in bulk assuming most people are on ocuptus etc & that alone could save you loads of money, especially if you take into account ultra low plunge prices etc. You could provide such a service gary, all you'd need is access to people accounts which is hardly the personal of information.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

I totally agree - and I think we're still a little way from such a "fire and forget" system. The closest I've seen is myenergyoptimiser.co.uk in the UK, which can manage tariffs from Octopus Energy if you have a GivEnergy battery. I'll be talking more about this in part 4 of my strategies for smart tariffs series.

[@radiotowers1159]

Nice video Gary, pretty sure their are lot of viewers here that love gadgets. The raspberry pi is something Ive used myself for a few years, I use it to run my weather station software and upload it to various weather sites including the BBC weather watchers site. However as you probably know it should be noted it does NOT natively run Windows ( unless you install another piece of software first)rather another type of software called Linux and its version called raspbian. The raspberry pi is very capable and can be left running for weeks on end without any user intervention, but certainly worth learning the basics and then you can get the graphic interface up and running and it looks like any other software package. So a bit of learning curve to get your head around first.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Thanks - yeah, I really like the like of Home Assistant - it's just so flexible and scalable. I do worry though about about the amount of effort required to get a system up and running, then ongoing effort to *keep* it running. Perhaps a "mass market" solution will arise from all of this - either from HA or another party?

[@terrymackenzie6784]

When you first look at HA it's scary even for a software engineer like me but great community and your likely to find people with the very same selection of eqipment you have, give it a go have fun (saving money)

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Sounds great 👍🏻 and I love that people are so happy to help each other out with HA issues…

[@humdrum3899]

Hi Gary, Many thanks for all your helpful advice. I'm trying to find an answer to this question: Under normal circumstances, with the grid working, air conditioners can be powered by PV or batteries, or a combination of the 2. Why is it that air conditioners should not be on the backup circuits, when the grid is lost?

[@GaryDoesSolar]

You're very welcome. Which part of the world are you in? The regulations may vary...

[@humdrum3899]

@@GaryDoesSolar I'm in Thailand.....they do not like/allow export to the grid. My house is single phase. I have a Deye 8KW single phase hybrid inverter....3 x 5KW batteries. I have a CT linked into my inverter, which as I understand stops export back to the grid. I just want to understand why air conditioners, or any other device that has a high surge current, is not usually part of the back-up circuitry that is enabled when the grid is lost. Many thanks. I w

[@GaryDoesSolar]

@@humdrum3899 Thanks for the extra detail. Now, unfortunately I don't have an answer for you, but perhaps others here might...

[@SteveLoughran]

I use HA to keep an eye on my Easee 1 charger, Electric BMW (Tronity and Bimmerconnected) and octopus mini. This gives me a single screen of car charge, charger activity and a nice graph over time of how car charge and range is going. I’ve not wired up my old inverter. When I go for a new battery I will make sure that the supplier actually provide their own plug-in -Tronity do. The full BMW wire up was a different matter: even as a full time software developer I found it painful. That’s because BMW don’t document their phone-to-BMW API and there’s no official support. We need that kind of thing by default

[@GaryDoesSolar]

That's pretty cool integration, Steve - I'm impressed!

[@SteveLoughran]

@@GaryDoesSolar I gave a talk on this topic in may. It is not seamless, though Tronity do as much as they can -and if you want to make the most of the ABRP route planner, Tronity is a core part of the story. Most of the talk is about how how “consumer” smart home stuff is bad because of a power struggle between the predators and a failure to recognise and incorporate social structures. EVs are part of that power struggle kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6rMpnR8pLWLZsk

[@michaelheathcote9488]

I went down the intel NUC route. Secondhand much cheaper than a Pi Initially used HS for excess solar to granny charge our hybrid EV, through a smart plug. Then we signed up to Octopus Intelligent and it all became redundant! Now its use what we can overnight and simply export what we can during the day. I guess HS can assist in this case too, but in our case, presently, we don't need it. HS certainly isn't for the faint-hearted. It took some setting up initially. It's more of a hobby in my view.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Yeah I agree, Michael - these solutions are very complex to not only setup but also maintain. We're a long way from a "fire and forget" solution. I'm keeping my eye out though. The easiest I've seen so far is myenergyoptimiser.co.uk

[@oakfieldfarm4131]

I would say that the easiest route into Home Assistant is to buy a Home Assistant Green with it preinstalled - it cuts out the Raspberry Pi purchase, self-assembly and installation, which is quite a hurdle for a lot of folks.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Yeah, for newcomers, this looks like a good route to go!

[@geoffreycoan]

Agreed. The pi is the classic route but does require an additional level of geekiness. For newcomers the green costs about the same and is simpler to setup

[@madharry6792]

Hi Gary, Oliver, thank you for all the smashing informative videos you both make to help us. Is there an easy way to turn old solar panel installation “smart” to connect to an app for monitoring solar generation?

[@mastweiler22]

I use an EmonPi and EmonTx running Open Energy Monitor to keep an eye on my old solar setup. It also talks to Home Assistant (but thats not required.)

[@AndrewJonesMcGuire]

The simplest solution is a Zigbee energy meter with bidirectional CT clamp that you just clip over the live cable coming from the inverter. Then you will get roughly 10 second updates on whatever Zigbee platform you pair it with. The most common Zigbee CT clamp meters are TuYa based ones and if you don't have any other Zigbee hub that will support it, then getting the TuYa Zigbee gateway will be necessary too.

[@madharry6792]

@@AndrewJonesMcGuire thank you

[@madharry6792]

@@mastweiler22 thank you

[@notjustageek]

You can buy a CT clamp to monitor power / energy usage. Shelly sell wifi ones (you don't need a hub etc) which work with home assistant (and other platforms) and don't need the cloud to run.

[@linkup1958]

There seems to be an opportunity here for a company to develop a simple system with an interface the average man on the street could use and understand.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Agreed. And I sometimes think that, in general, it is one of the failed promises of technology:it’s supposed to make our lives easier - and it does, but only when it works. Unfortunately, when it doesn’t work (more often that we’d like) resolution is often difficult and costly :-/ Those working on technological solutions would do well to remove as much complexity as possible - both for ease of use and for ease of resolution 👍🏻

[@MrBeeseegee]

Couldn't agree more. I'd love to have what Home Assistant appears to be able to do but I can see that putting this together is totally beyond me. But I guess I'd shell out a couple of hundred if there was a reliable off-the-shelf system.

[@Venomator.]

@@GaryDoesSolarThank you for delving into this topic Gary - I have been considering Home Assistant very recently. This has resulted in me being ready to push the button on a Home Assistant Green - only £89 or so and can be purchased from the UK so no import issues. I have read many reviews and it seems to be, initially at least, Plug & Play and very easy to set up and run even for numpties like me… ✅ ⚡️ 👍🏻

[@GaryDoesSolar]

@@Venomator. You're most welcome 👍 And Sounds good about the HA Green! Would be great to hear how you get on with it over time😃

[@SkillFullSheep]

The capability of a system is inversely proportional to its complexity.

[@thilokielmann3299]

Thanks for this highly interesting video!

[@GaryDoesSolar]

It was our pleasure - cheers! 😀👍🏻

[@graeme5873]

Hey Gary, I used your referral code for octopus seeing as shell is being taken over by octopus so thought we may as well get paid for it! Looking to get solar and batteries early next year (givenergy aio or 9.5kwh and hybrid 5k??). Thanks for all your content and hard work.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Hi Graeme, that’s so very kind of you - thanks 🙏 So I went for the hybrid 5kW and 2 x 9.5kWh batteries. If I had my time again I’d go for a Tesla Powerwall or the AIO. AC Coupled is more flexible, I reckon. Might all come down to price though!

[@graeme5873]

@@GaryDoesSolar Have been following the news to see anything on the Tesla powerwall 3, but still looking like giv's aio is the better prospect atm, especially taking price in to account. Again thanks for all the knowledge 🙂

[@GaryDoesSolar]

@graeme5873 Yeah, I really like the Powerwall 2 but the MNC chemistry put me off as it would be residing in my garage - directly under my bed! PW3 and s LFP - much safer. It’s great that GivEnergy are really shaking up the market on pricing. And their support is the best I’ve seen from ANY battery manufacturer 👍🏻

[@paulrautenbach]

I don't use a smart phone or tablet and so would have difficulty setting up smart devices - linking them to use OK Google or Alexa for control for instance. Does Home Assistant have the capability to link to smart devices without the need for running Smart Life, etc. on an iOS or Android device? If so, I'd probably look into setting up a Home Assistant server. I'm a retired programmer so should be able to deal with setting up a Raspberry Pi server for Home Assistant. [You may ask why I don't use a smart phone if I can handle a Raspberry Pi and programming. I just don't get on with touch-screen devices and smart phones/tablets. I find I touch something on the screen by mistake and it thinks I'm asking it to do something I don't want, plus there is no undo button or button to go back to where I was. I just find these things frustrating. Also, it's difficult to disable all the battery-draining and money-eating software that connects via a SIM rather than WiFi.]

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Hi Paul, yeah - touchscreens are not for everyone. I recently watched the recently released movie on Blackberry - they were are the top of the market for many years (you may have used their devices yourself?) but alas, the work has gone almost totally touchscreen now... It's worth you reaching out to Oliver on his channel (just tell him you watched the interview) and I'm sure he'll give you some useful pointers! :-)

[@SteveLoughran]

HA’s primary UI is a web site which works wonderfully from a laptop or PC. Their phone apps are essentially wrappers round the web UI with (optional, paid) remote access, notifications and some more. I don’t bother with remote access and just use the web view from any device: one less app. It does integrate with apple home and amazon echo -it can offer its features as services- and can do more cutting edge home automation stuff (zigbee/thread controller,..) but you really have to want to put in effort there.

[@paulrautenbach]

@@SteveLoughran Thank you. It was because I knew Home Assistant could be used without an iOS or Android app (using a web browser from my iMac) that I was interested in the possibility that a smart device could be set up using Home Assistant to work with a Google home mini. That is, can the Google home mini and a smart plug both be initialised to connect to my WiFi using Home Assistant without the need for Smart Life? If so, can the Google mini then be set up to switch the smart plug by voice without the need for any iOS or Android app?

[@SteveLoughran]

@@paulrautenbach aah, it gets complicated, especially as the different “apex predators” of the home ecosystem: apple, google and amazon, all currently support devices which don’t interact that well with each other’s product: they all want to be in charge. I believe that you can set up HA to be the hub for things like light bulbs and plugs and then apple and google home stuff will find them, though what control you get is probably a bit mixed and will come down to “how much time do you want to spend with it”. It can act as a zigbee hub and should let you do lights -the more advanced stuff will get harder. Keep your expectations low

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Thanks @@SteveLoughran - this is really good info! 👍

[@ladams5356]

It’s a geeky thing but once you are in it realise it’s quite logical

[@GaryDoesSolar]

That's a nice way of putting it. I would like to see setup and maintenance of HA made a lot simpler though...

[@royeasto885]

I worry about the makers of my PV and Solar inverters going bust over their lifetime and my ability to change the charging times so this is of interest to me but its quite likely that HA cannot control the inverters.

[@notjustageek]

You'd be surprised how many inverters support some kind of control. Possible options (hard to be specific without inverter details) include: - Local or cloud based API - MQTT - Modbus (either locally using a serial port or over a network) - this seems fairly common but might need an additional card in the inverter etc

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Fair point, but it sounds to me that there is likely to be HA support for most solar inverters on the market, given the size of the HA community 👍🏻

[@amangine]

This video itself has basically nothing about solar config/setup, despite the title. It's basically an intro to home assistant - which is fine, but that's what the title should clearly state.

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Title changed to match thumbnail 👍🏻

[@TheDavidsims]

Forget PI's or Yellow or Green - Intel NUC's are the best choice

[@GaryDoesSolar]

I’ll look into those… thanks for highlighting 👍🏻

[@geoffreycoan]

Nuc is similar to a pi, a self setup. Is low energy and cheap to run, but for a newcomer I’d still stick to a green as less setup hassle

[@NunoLeitaoTheEpiq]

First?I would say, update HA twice a year and u won't have big issues

[@GaryDoesSolar]

First to comment? Yes 😃

[@AndrewJonesMcGuire]

I wouldn't recommend that though. It's easier to keep on top of small changes because they are in the breaking changes for each release, but if you skip half a year, you have to read the breaking changes for every release to see what things you might need to change, rather than just updating and finding half the system doesn't work properly and now you have to backtrack to find out what you need to fix.

[@NunoLeitaoTheEpiq]

@@AndrewJonesMcGuire well Im doing that for some time, and it's going really fine. Some other tip I would give is update only .3 or bigger revisions

[@AndrewJonesMcGuire]

@@NunoLeitaoTheEpiq definitely agree with not updating straight to the .0 releases. To be fair since the migration from YAML to UI there are definitely less breaking changes in each release to worry about. Though I've just had an issue today because of the change to the supervisor - which means add-ons now have to write to /homeassistant instead of /config as they have forever. This broke some of my NodeRed flows overnight - since Supervisor updates automatically.

[@Ian_Woods]

Sounds like a full time Job, think I'll pass 😁

[@GaryDoesSolar]

Yeah, I’m really looking for a “fire and forget” solution - maybe one or more of the technologies available (including HA) will trend towards this over time…