Monitoring our PV System

Given that our off grid home was basically a big experiment, I wanted to track how much energy we’re using and how much we’re producing, along with how much energy was in the batteries. the company that markets our inverters and batteries have a decent app that does this, but it has some drawbacks. First, it relies on a cloud connection. While that is usually not a problem and can even have some advantages, I wanted a way to keep track of things locally.

Enter Solar Assistant. The company offers hardware that you can just plug in and set up in a few minutes, but they also offer a version that you can run on a Raspberry Pi. I had a few of these and some extra MicroSD cards just laying around in a drawer, so I went with that option. It sits on top of the electric panel I use to combine the inverter outputs before they go into the main electric panel, and does an excellent job. I can see everything I need to know most of the time with just a quick glance at a dashboard that looks like the picture I used for this post, and it even allows me to access my data remotely, from anywhere I have an internet connetion. I also store a few key pieces of data from it in a Google Sheet, and that allows me to quickly understand our use, production, and battery status over time.

I’m a big fan of Solar Assistant, and still marvel that people who have been off grid for years don’t know about it, much less use it religiously. Unless you have a great alternative system such as Victron’s VRM, I see it as a must-have for anyone that relies on solar to power their home.