Solar Energy Monitoring

[MattyValley]

Hello everyone.

First post here - so be gentle!!

Looking to start monitoring my solar use at home and wondered what systems/tools people here use to track it all? Saw this earlier ( Solar Energy Monitoring with Fronius and Loxone | Loxone Blog EN ) & it got me thinking about other ways to monitor use.

Cheers chaps!!

 

[jason121]

Have a look at the Elios 4 you. Monitors export and solar power. Andy from Sibert solar will tell you more. He posts on this forum

 

[MattyValley]

Thanks Jason, I'll have a look...

 

[series530]

If you are a little bit handy with a soldering iron (nothing fancy) and can or are willing to learn how to program a micro controller (again, very easy) you can build your own with a little bit of encouragement for others on a forum.

For about £60 you can accurately measure the power that your house is consuming, how much you are generating and how much of it is being exported. Add in about £30 and you can have this on an LCD display. If you want, for about £30, you can divert the excess power to heat up your water (this bit requires a little more work and should be undertaken by qualified people because you need add control to the immersion heater {provided you have one}). Another little box for £30 or so and you can send all of your statistics to the web and display them on your own web page (free of charge) using software freely available.

This approach isn't for everyone but plenty of people with no experience of electronics or programming have done this very successfully.

If you are interested, take a look over here Home | OpenEnergyMonitor (a great little project for the cold winter evenings!)

 

[Worcester]

eco-eye smart PV worth having a look at Eco-eye SmartPV Energy monitor – wireless electricity monitor for domestic solar PV installations

My open energy monitor is going great guns - 18 differeny environmental monitors at the mo and another half dozen yet to add in

I know puddy choose a system recently and his criteria was that it must be accurate and his wife had to be able to install it .. he'll pop up here in a minute

 

[MattyValley]

I like the look of that Eco-Eye monitor - I'll look into that a bit more. Nice one, Worcester.

 

[puddy]

Have a look at the Geo chorus pv2 sold by amazon. It’s that simple to fit my mrs did it for me within 30 minutes and no tools are needed plus it includes its own colour monitor.

I have tried the Fronius data logger web 2 and the Solar-log 200 Wi-Fi they tell you what your generating but not what you are exporting to the grid so you only give you half the story. Not easy to fit plus need a data cardfor your inverter. The solar-log 200 Wi-Fi cost over £500 new

The Geo chorus 2 give's you import & export figure real time data you can track 3 tariffs and at a great price direct from Amazon

As for the Elios4you I have it but not fitted it yet so cannot comment

So the geo chorus 2 wins on price, free and simple fitting can be tracked online up and working within 30 minutes