Solar Assistant Wish list, Bugs and Issues.

[crazydane]

Is the main function Solar Assistant bring to the table over Home Assistant alone, the ability to configure supported inverter(s) directly?

That and I guess also that you don't have to do all the integration and Grafana work yourself like with HA?

 

[wattmatters]

What does Solar Assistant bring to the table that can't be done with Home Assistant directly?

Can you change your inverter's mode of operation directly with HA?

I have 8 inverters all nicely integrated in HA's Energy pane

I have two inverters feeding data into this (one being via Solar Assistant) but for some reason the HA Energy dashboard is not working so well for me at the moment. It's refusing to display the Solar production chart.

This is what I get now:



The data is there because the Energy usage chart shows the solar contribution and flow charts at top right shows the production data, and the individual inverter production data is shown below the Solar Output. It has me completely confused as to why it won't display. It just decided a few days ago to stop. Last day it was displaying correctly was 1 September when I happened to make a screen grab:


Also missing from that Solar production chart is the Solcast solar forecast data. The whole chart has just decided to stop working. Caches cleared, am using latest HA operating system etc.

The Energy Dashboard is a bit of a work in progress, it's improved but has had its issues over the past year for me. I like it, and wish it were more reliable, but I would not be trusting it to be a long term reliable source of information on my system's performance.

 

[crazydane]

I don't see why HA would not be able to change inverter modes, but I'm not aware of any of the inverter integrations supporting that at this time. I primarily use HA to just monitor what's going on. My inverters are grid tied and after the initial configuration, I have not had a need to go into them to change anything. But I don't have batteries in the mix and I see that Solar Assistant has extensive support for that and also insight into BMCs, etc.

I haven't really noticed any reliability issues with the Energy dashboard, but then I have only really been using it for the last month or so. Here's what mine looks like:



I really like the ability to monitor individual devices as well:



But I track my main inverter stats in Grafana:



And also what's going on with power in general:





And I really like the sensor value templates to do math on sensor readings:



But there's a LOT of manual configuration involved to get HA setup, so I definitely see how Solar Assistant would be a lot more user friendly in that regard. It doesn't look like there's a ready made Integration in HA for Solar Assistant, so what's the method used to pull data from it into HA?

Can I run Solar Assistant in a VM, or only on a Pi?

 

[wattmatters]

But there's a LOT of manual configuration involved to get HA setup, so I definitely see how Solar Assistant would be a lot more user friendly in that regard. It doesn't look like there's a ready made Integration in HA for Solar Assistant, so what's the method used to pull data from it into HA?

Solar Assistant uses a Home Assistant MQTT broker integration. It enables not only listening to all the data from SA but also the ability to change the inverter's mode of operation.

I don't see why HA would not be able to change inverter modes, but I'm not aware of any of the inverter integrations supporting that at this time. I primarily use HA to just monitor what's going on. My inverters are grid tied and after the initial configuration, I have not had a need to go into them to change anything.

With grid tied inverters you would normally not need to change anything since they just pump out all they can all the time. But with off-grid inverters using a supplemental utility input for charging or load assistance you are often wanting to change the load source priority and/or the charger source priority. It's typically a daily cycle.

e.g. in the morning I swap the operating mode of my off-grid inverter to Utility First mode, so that it uses my grid tied PV system to supply loads. But in the late afternoon/evening I switch back to Solar/Battery/Utility mode so the house runs from the battery overnight.

Why don't I have a grid tied battery system instead?
A: Cost - because of local regulatory requirements it would be at least triple the price for the same storage capacity. So making it off-grid with grid support and doing some management of inverter operating mode gets me effectively the same thing for a price that makes economic sense, while grid tied battery prices are ridiculous.

Sometimes I also want the grid tied PV (11 kW) to supplement battery charging by my much smaller off-grid PV array (2.2 kW). If the off-grid array isn't going to get the batteries charged in time, I adjust the charger source priority and charge rate during the day to provide supplemental energy to the batteries.

 

[wattmatters]

Can I run Solar Assistant in a VM, or only on a Pi?

Only on a Raspberry Pi.

Read up here:

Real-time solar monitoring from a Raspberry Pi | SolarAssistant Software

Real-time charts, analytics and power management from via a Raspberry pi - the most powerful, cost effective device on the planet.

solar-assistant.io

 

[crazydane]

Thanks for the responses! Solar Assistant sounds like a very interesting product and I see now how it differentiates itself from HA. That's a pretty clever arrangement you have setup!

 

[drfous]

Has anyone found a fix for rebooting when on wifi?

If I cut power from the inverter without a proper shutdown, it doesn't want to reboot without pulling the usbs.

 

[Quattrohead]

Only on a Raspberry Pi.

Read up here:

Real-time solar monitoring from a Raspberry Pi | SolarAssistant Software

Real-time charts, analytics and power management from via a Raspberry pi - the most powerful, cost effective device on the planet.

solar-assistant.io

Can't get Pi's until next year. Anyone running something similar on a PC or ESP8266/ESP32 type device.

 

[Quattrohead]

Crazydane, absolutely love your system.

 

[karnallie]

Following discussion here and elsewhere, another to add to my list:

9. Data / system backup and restore options.

Because the supplied RPi system is SD card based, this is not a long term reliable option for system and data. It will fail.

So I'd like to see options included in SA for the user to more readily backup their SA system and data (preferably an automated option), and of course a means to restore it.

For my Home Assistant RPi I have it auto backup everything 3 times a week to a Google drive.

I have to agree this is crucial. Mentioning the feature of "10 years of data with single inverter" using an 8Gb uSD card easily makes you think longevity of your data is not a concern, but with constant writing to SD cards being the only official implementation I highly doubt you would even get close to 10 years of data before the card fails...

I am waiting on my RS485 cable so that I can setup my SA installation, but now I am already concerned about when I will lose my data.
Even a manual "export my data" and "import my data" option will alleviate the concerns to an extent, but automated periodic backup to say Google Drive is a better long-term solution.

 

[Ted Katsouras]

I have to agree this is crucial. Mentioning the feature of "10 years of data with single inverter" using an 8Gb uSD card easily makes you think longevity of your data is not a concern, but with constant writing to SD cards being the only official implementation I highly doubt you would even get close to 10 years of data before the card fails...

I am waiting on my RS485 cable so that I can setup my SA installation, but now I am already concerned about when I will lose my data.
Even a manual "export my data" and "import my data" option will alleviate the concerns to an extent, but automated periodic backup to say Google Drive is a better long-term solution.

+1

 

[thanhrodke]

I am running a pair of the new EG4 6000EX units, and they only have a single MPPT. As such, I'd like the ability to suppress that throughout the entire SolarAssistant ecosystem. And in my case, having MPPT 2 in SAaallows discovery of a full set of related sensors into Home Assistant that will always have zero values.

Related, this system is off grid, so the ability to disable/hide everything related to grid power as well would clean things up quite a bit in both SolarAsisstant and Home Assistant.

 

[Jazzmonger]

Can't get Pi's until next year. Anyone running something similar on a PC or ESP8266/ESP32 type device.

I recently ordered an Orange Pi 3 and it seems like a direct clone of RPis. I literally took my pi3 card out and plugged it into the Orange Pi and it booted right up. Took about 2 weeks to arrive, $40 shipped:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803390997951.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.6a2125e7gkoY1o&algo_pvid=c44962c2-94c0-4efc-b6bf-180c4ebdc754&algo_exp_id=c44962c2-94c0-4efc-b6bf-180c4ebdc754-0&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000026945335517%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21USD%2135.0%2135.0%21%21%21%21%21%402103255a16645728441008958e2e37%2112000026945335517%21sea&curPageLogUid=IhNu0FHUOB26

if I get another one it'll be a pi4. The 3s are just a bit underpowered.

 

[Jazzmonger]

Anyone able to get bms data from SA into home assistant via mqtt? I have a 4 unit battery pack and only battery pack #1 is reporting data. The rest say "unknown" and pack 4 isn't even listed.

 

[Jazzmonger]

I don't see why HA would not be able to change inverter modes, but I'm not aware of any of the inverter integrations supporting that at this time. I primarily use HA to just monitor what's going on. My inverters are grid tied and after the initial configuration, I have not had a need to go into them to change anything. But I don't have batteries in the mix and I see that Solar Assistant has extensive support for that and also insight into BMCs, etc.

I haven't really noticed any reliability issues with the Energy dashboard, but then I have only really been using it for the last month or so. Here's what mine looks like:

View attachment 110432

I really like the ability to monitor individual devices as well:

View attachment 110433

But I track my main inverter stats in Grafana:

View attachment 110434

And also what's going on with power in general:

View attachment 110435

View attachment 110436

And I really like the sensor value templates to do math on sensor readings:

View attachment 110437

But there's a LOT of manual configuration involved to get HA setup, so I definitely see how Solar Assistant would be a lot more user friendly in that regard. It doesn't look like there's a ready made Integration in HA for Solar Assistant, so what's the method used to pull data from it into HA?

Can I run Solar Assistant in a VM, or only on a Pi?

Really nice job bud! I really need to spend some quality time with Grafana. It's slick. I tried getting it installed on my home assistant instance (supervised) on Docker a few yrs ago and was unsuccessful. I bet it's a lot easier now.

 

[thanhrodke]

another note about solar assistant. when using the Narada BMS, Solar Assistant only recommends setting the "Read current from" option to inverter when only the master battery is readable.


I've noticed though that on my EG4 LifePower4 48V 100Ah batteries the lowest charge/discharge value they will report is about 100 watts. in my case with 12 batteries, that means the batteries could be charging/discharging about 1,200 watts in sum before the batteries even report anything when polled by SA.

so I've changed my setting to read from the inverters, and can read therefore all the way down to 0 watts (obviously according to the inverters), which makes all of the charts, graphs, and charging estimates more accurate.

here's a sample cleaned up screenshot showing where the inverters reporting 903 watts being pulled from the batteries, but all 12 batteries reported 0 watts being drawn.



I guess this request is to update the help text surrounding that setting. I can't report on how other batteries report their data, but the EG4 LifePower4 batteries definitely have a lower limit that they will report, and the recommended setting will get you much less data when you are in a low charge/discharge situation. For me, that's currently 12 hours a day, which is a little before sunset to a little after sunrise.

 

[wattmatters]

but the EG4 LifePower4 batteries definitely have a lower limit that they will report

That sucks.

 

[Texican]

Anyone able to get bms data from SA into home assistant via mqtt? I have a 4 unit battery pack and only battery pack #1 is reporting data. The rest say "unknown" and pack 4 isn't even listed.

View attachment 114299
View attachment 114300

yes I am getting my 6 eg4 batts info into HA from SA using mqtt.
seem to be getting voltage, min cell vots, max cell volts, avg volts and temps I think thats it

what I need is the SOC of the batts as shown in SA, and tyhe rate of charge/discharge percentage would be great

 

[thanhrodke]

make sure your battery IDs start with 2, and not zero. if you started with zero, SA would only see battery #2 and #3.

also, if you got SA up and running on one battery as a test, then got everything else up and running, you need to have home assistant rediscover everything. so stop mqtt in SA, then enable the discovery, then start mqtt in SA. then go into home assistant, find your mqtt solar assistant integration, configure, reiconfigure mqtt, next, then make sure the enable discovery option and finish.

each time I make any hardware additions to the system, I have to run through these steps. maybe in your case, it's just that HA needs some sort of refresh on the data it can get from SA.

 

[Jazzmonger]

make sure your battery IDs start with 2, and not zero. if you started with zero, SA would only see battery #2 and #3.

also, if you got SA up and running on one battery as a test, then got everything else up and running, you need to have home assistant rediscover everything. so stop mqtt in SA, then enable the discovery, then start mqtt in SA. then go into home assistant, find your mqtt solar assistant integration, configure, reiconfigure mqtt, next, then make sure the enable discovery option and finish.

each time I make any hardware additions to the system, I have to run through these steps. maybe in your case, it's just that HA needs some sort of refresh on the data it can get from SA.

I started with battery ID 1 and SA sees all 4 batteries and all of their params. It's just the mqtt data in home assistant that isnit flowing from sa to home assistant for batteries 2,3 &4. Home assistant has each battery listed, just no data "unknown" for each attribute. I tried your steps but I still only see data on battery 1.