Questions and discussion about solar, batteries, and electrification
I have found that the recent app update shows the solar export which is great to see.
is there any way I can get an export of both solar export and power import on a spreadsheet?
im trying to model what my export would be in winter with a larger system.
thanks
Solved Go to Answer
Hi Dimitry,
Congrats on getting Solar. I reckon you've been on it for 2 weeks now.
1) I seem to recall another post where someone indicated that the information is updated at a set interval (24 hours or something like that). However, I couldn't locate the post. I think that is why it always has yesterday's date.
2) I think there is something wrong if you are consuming from the grid while also feeding in the electricity from your panel. If you can post your CSV screenshot showing where that is the case, it would make it easier for the rest of the community to see what is happening.
The only thing I can figure is that the inverter needs to be configured correctly to offset your household consumption, then it feeds the excess energy to the grid.
Hypothetically, you can feed some to the grid and receive from the grid in a 30 minute interval where it was sunny the first 5 minutes, you had an appliance kick on and then it was cloudy (drawing electricity from the grid), then the clouds disappeared 5 minutes later and your solar was offsetting the power in the house. However, there is a netting effect which should take place at the smart meter (it is only receiving or delivering at any given time). However, if this is happening very often, I would be suspicious of an inverter configuration issue.
Hi Schnader,
In regards to getting readings for both usage and export at the same time, i've had another look at the data, and it seems to happen a couple of times a day, and almost every morning, just when the solar is firing up.
Looks something like this:
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 04:30 | 6/09/2019 04:59 | 0.165 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 05:00 | 6/09/2019 05:29 | 0 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 05:00 | 6/09/2019 05:29 | 0.169 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 05:30 | 6/09/2019 05:59 | 0 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 05:30 | 6/09/2019 05:59 | 0.164 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 06:00 | 6/09/2019 06:29 | 0 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 06:00 | 6/09/2019 06:29 | 0.241 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 06:30 | 6/09/2019 06:59 | 0 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 06:30 | 6/09/2019 06:59 | 0.197 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 07:00 | 6/09/2019 07:29 | 0.002 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 07:00 | 6/09/2019 07:29 | 0.031 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 07:30 | 6/09/2019 07:59 | 0.009 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 07:30 | 6/09/2019 07:59 | 0.052 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 08:00 | 6/09/2019 08:29 | 0.186 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 08:00 | 6/09/2019 08:29 | 0.14 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 08:30 | 6/09/2019 08:59 | 0.598 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 08:30 | 6/09/2019 08:59 | 0 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 09:00 | 6/09/2019 09:29 | 0.852 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 09:00 | 6/09/2019 09:29 | 0 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 09:30 | 6/09/2019 09:59 | 1.259 |
Generalusage | 6/09/2019 09:30 | 6/09/2019 09:59 | 0 |
Solar | 6/09/2019 10:00 | 6/09/2019 10:29 | 1.756 |
Maybe something to do with low levels of solar being generated in the morning but high burst usage around that time from things like kettle and toaster being used.
Hi Dimitry,
Yes, these readings look relatively normal to me. However, without the readings from your inverter, this gives an incomplete picture. You need the following information:
1) Solar Power Generated (kWh) for the same time period.
2) Solar Power fed to Retailer (kWH) - Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) - which you have
3) Solar Power Consumed Internally (kWh) - The formula for this is (1) - (2) should give you a value
4) Solar Power Financial Benefit - The formula for this is [(3) x Peak Rate] + [(2) x FiT rate]
The answer to the above will confirm or explain what you are seeing and whether your solar panels are doing their job to offset your household consumption.
Regards,
Schander
Shander
You mean something like this.
My billing Started 30 October
So two days carried forward.
Peak is GeneralUsage, Exported is Solar to Grid, Solar Gen is Panel Output, Used is what I consumed in house from the Solar Panels, Meter is Peak Meter (E1) current reading and Solar is Meter B1 current reading.
Date | Peak | Exported | Solar Gen | Used | Meter | Solar |
Carried Fwd | 6.117 | 64.658 | 74.4 | -9.742 | 1446.032 | 5073.271 |
1-Nov | 4.945 | 20.381 | 24.70 | -4.32 | 1450.977 | 5093.652 |
2-Nov | 5.560 | 21.241 | 26.70 | -5.46 | 1456.537 | 5114.893 |
3-Nov | 4.525 | 23.764 | 30.10 | -6.34 | 1461.062 | 5138.657 |
4-Nov | 3.706 | 25.998 | 31.60 | -5.60 | 1464.768 | 5164.655 |
5-Nov | 3.727 | 29.123 | 34.20 | -5.08 | 1468.495 | 5193.778 |
6-Nov | 2.762 | 32.233 | 36.90 | -4.67 | 1471.257 | 5226.011 |
7-Nov | 3.151 | 20.092 | 24.50 | -4.41 | 1474.408 | 5246.103 |
8-Nov | 3.918 | 26.643 | 31.60 | -4.96 | 1478.326 | 5272.746 |
9-Nov | 4.158 | 29.681 | 34.60 | -4.92 | 1482.484 | 5302.427 |
10-Nov | 3.136 | 33.601 | 38.90 | -5.30 | 1485.620 | 5336.028 |
11-Nov | 4.346 | 27.396 | 35.30 | -7.90 | 1489.966 | 5363.424 |
12-Nov | 4.267 | 23.923 | 28.80 | -4.88 | 1494.233 | 5387.347 |
I have two programs that I use to obtain this data. The first AGL2nem converts the MyUsageData_ file into industry standard NEM 12 format and the second MeterRead reads the Nem file.
Meter Read can create a CSV file with up to 31 Columns (with totals) that the user can designate to extract usage between two times in a day (say 00:00 to 04:00 or even 11:00 to 11:30).
NMI 20012345678 <--> Meter #U290000999 <--> NMI ID=B1 Interval Mins=30 |
DATE | NMI | TYPE | D/Total | 00:00>06:00 | 06:00>12:00 | 12:00>18:00 | 18:00>00:00 |
20191030 | B1 | Solar | 32.037 | 0 | 13.777 | 18.12 | 0.14 |
20191031 | B1 | Solar | 32.621 | 0 | 14.501 | 18.056 | 0.064 |
20191101 | B1 | Solar | 20.381 | 0 | 11.883 | 8.474 | 0.024 |
20191102 | B1 | Solar | 21.241 | 0 | 6.639 | 14.527 | 0.075 |
20191103 | B1 | Solar | 23.764 | 0 | 8.935 | 14.712 | 0.117 |
20191104 | B1 | Solar | 25.998 | 0 | 9.032 | 16.911 | 0.055 |
20191105 | B1 | Solar | 29.123 | 0 | 12.582 | 16.403 | 0.138 |
20191106 | B1 | Solar | 32.233 | 0 | 14.46 | 17.562 | 0.211 |
20191107 | B1 | Solar | 20.092 | 0 | 7.881 | 12.184 | 0.027 |
20191108 | B1 | Solar | 26.643 | 0 | 11.437 | 15.03 | 0.176 |
20191109 | B1 | Solar | 29.681 | 0 | 11.383 | 18.238 | 0.06 |
20191110 | B1 | Solar | 33.601 | 0 | 14.942 | 18.54 | 0.119 |
20191111 | B1 | Solar | 27.396 | 0 | 13.31 | 14.021 | 0.065 |
20191112 | B1 | Solar | 23.923 | 0 | 9.62 | 14.184 | 0.119 |
Total: | B1 | Solar | 378.734 | 0 | 160.382 | 216.962 | 1.39 |
NMI 20012345678 <--> Meter #U290000999 <--> NMI ID=E1 Interval Mins=30 |
DATE | NMI | TYPE | D/Total | 00:00>06:00 | 06:00>12:00 | 12:00>18:00 | 18:00>00:00 |
20191030 | E1 | General | 2.863 | 1.353 | 0.027 | 0 | 1.483 |
20191031 | E1 | General | 3.254 | 1.456 | 0.044 | 0 | 1.754 |
20191101 | E1 | General | 4.945 | 1.887 | 0.034 | 0 | 3.024 |
20191102 | E1 | General | 5.56 | 2.348 | 0.86 | 0.005 | 2.347 |
20191103 | E1 | General | 4.525 | 2.503 | 0.115 | 0.02 | 1.887 |
20191104 | E1 | General | 3.706 | 2.029 | 0.061 | 0.002 | 1.614 |
20191105 | E1 | General | 3.727 | 1.599 | 0.022 | 0 | 2.106 |
20191106 | E1 | General | 2.762 | 1.559 | 0.035 | 0 | 1.168 |
20191107 | E1 | General | 3.151 | 1.234 | 0.042 | 0 | 1.875 |
20191108 | E1 | General | 3.918 | 1.94 | 0.014 | 0 | 1.964 |
20191109 | E1 | General | 4.158 | 1.919 | 0.153 | 0.001 | 2.085 |
20191110 | E1 | General | 3.136 | 1.123 | 0.104 | 0 | 1.909 |
20191111 | E1 | General | 4.346 | 1.845 | 0.081 | 0 | 2.42 |
20191112 | E1 | General | 4.267 | 1.799 | 0.074 | 0.138 | 2.256 |
Total: | E1 | General | 54.318 | 24.594 | 1.666 | 0.166 | 27.892 |
It also produces a text file with the same result for people that don't have a spreadsheet to read the CSV file
I have been trying to get someone to do user testing on the programs (Windows Only at the moment) to prove the concept and help with the documentation.
The output is shown for up to 10 Meters individually. You can if you want ignore meters
Plenty of other options as well.
Programs are stand alone, so you can run on any drive including a usb stick.
If interested PM me (messages are two on the right from your user Icon on the top of your page) and I will send you an email address that you can communicate directly with me.
Cheers Neil
Hi NeilC,
Thanks for your response. As I mentioned to the OP, the "value add" is the calculation. Your application does a good job with aggregating the transactional meter reading data into the summarised columns. But if you could get it to analyse the information using the formula(s) I gave in my previous post, this would give the end-user the information they are after.
Regards,
Schander
Schander,
My Programs produced the information for me to get the information that I first started with and is just a spreadsheet (ElectUsed.xls).
I take the data from MeterRead, put that into ElectUsed and then use that to supply my BillingCalculator that tells me what my next bill will be and how much I have to pay each fortnight.
Current Bill | |
No Discount (Estimate) | |
Supply | $ 74.70 |
Paper Bill | $ - |
Peak | $ 127.01 |
Off Peak | $ - |
Discount | $ - |
Total | $ 201.71 |
+GST | $ 20.17 |
$ 221.88 | |
Solar Feed in | $ 494.24 |
Debit / Advance | $ - |
Total Payable | -$ 272.36 |
Payment Required Per Fortnight Pay on Time | -$ 39.00 |
Credit | $ 524.09 |
Cost Per Day | -$ 3.03 |
So as of Yesterday this is my projected bill due on the 28th January 2020.
As you can see I have a credit and my cost per day is MINUS $3.03 a day.
My same bill same period last year was $360 or ($3.90 a day) we had the solar installed 5 Dec 18 but did not get paid for any power generated in that bill.
My programs only convert the data from the AGL supplied MyUsageData_ file into actual easily read data.
How the individuals use that data is up to them.
If you get your daily usage (total of what used so far in this billing period, DIVIDED by the number of days) , then multiply it by actual number of days in you next bill you will get an fairly accurate figure for that meter).
If you then calculate the dollar amount for each meter add them all together add the cost of your supply charge you will have the dollar amount of your bill.
Which I believe is what most users would like to know.
I can also tell you other information about how much I have saved in the year since I had the solar installed, the fact that it will take me 2.731 years to recoop the cost of the install.
So I am 31 days into my Bill and have produced 851.196Kw back into the grid ($174.24), consumed 115.375 Kw ($47.31) from the grid and used 167.204 Kw power that I generated which is free from the sun and really does not have any value (I lost $33.44 from generation or saved $68.55 from grid charges).
Well that is not quite true as most of that 167.204 kw is used to heat my hot water (a FREE HEAT PUMP system from the Government)
So my daily usage is 3.7 Kw that I pay for, I used 5.4 Kw a day from my panels, the hot water consumes about half of that (2.7 Kw) which is a saving from the 4.5 Kw a day for the old off peak storage heater I had before.
But in reality all that matters is that my winter bills dropped from $460 for my winter bill last year to $260 this year (Saved $200 in one three month period), we did not have many sunny days this winter
By the way we are an all electric house have a small wood heater and that's all. Being in SA we get charged 40c a KW for usage and get 20c a Kw for supply to the Grid. We also get charged 91c a day for supply charges.
Cheers
Neil