AGL app now showing Solar export

[GLO]

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

[Schander]

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.

[Dimitryp]

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. 

[Schander]

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

[NeilC]

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

[Schander]

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

[NeilC]

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