A unique project; the client brief was simple – to ‘tap into’ and monitor the 3 phase electricity supply and 3 x SMA SunnyBoy solar PV inverters, providing them with a detailed view of their electricity grid usage and solar generation. Due to the distance and thickness of the walls at the property, using a ‘traditional’ monitor such as an Owl or Wattson had been tried without success.
Using a custom-built (to monitor the 3 phases plus PV) emonTX cluster from OpenEnergyMonitor, and emonCMS running on a Raspberry Pi, we created a CommandFusion interface on an Apple iPad to display the electricity feed data in near realtime. The interface background changes colour from red to blue depending on level of grid usage during PV generation. The result? A 28% reduction in electricity grid consumption over the first month, and a 17% reduction in the second.
Zen has now been commissioned to look into diversion of the excess solar PV during peak hours to maximise savings and return, as well as convert all the external/landscape lighting to a Rako wireless system using energy saving LEDs bulbs.