Can someone suggest a suitable solar pv monitor

squeegy

Im after a monitoring system that will show me what my solar pv system is generating but also what the household energy usage is. My pv generation meter is thr led pulse type. But my leccy meter is the wheel type. My consumer unit is in the utility room. The pv inverter is located in the garage, seperated from the house by a private alleyway. And the leccy meter is in a box on the outside wall. So ideally I need a system that has wireless transmitters from the parts the monitor needs to connect to.

Can anyone recommend a compatible monitoring system?

EricMears

squeegy wrote: »

Can anyone recommend a compatible monitoring system?

Everything described can be handled by a Wattson.

Driskell01

Hi
I am also in the same boat. My PV will be installed on my garage roof which is about 40m from the house. It has its own consumer unit that has its feed from the main unit in the house. I also have an office in the garage that I work in everyday. I have been told that the normal Owl style monitors wont work as I am using power from the same cable as the PV will be using, meaning the readings won't be accurate. I need a way of clamping at the inverter end in the garage and at the main input into the house so it can be monitored properly. Had a look at the Wattson and the clamps still seem to be wired, would need to be wireless really.

Ta

Paul

ChopperST

What about the Immersun 2?

You could use it for monitoring and divert excess to your immersion + 2 other loads?

http://www.biggreentechnology.com/renewable-technology/immersun-solar-pv-water-heater/immersun-2-with-wireless-transmitter-installed-uk-wide.html?source=Froogle

The_Green_Hornet

There are a number to choose from. Here are links to a few of them.

Current Cost PV OptiSmart

Eco-Eye Smart PV

Owl Intuition PV

Wattson Solar Plus

EricMears

Driskell01 wrote: »

Had a look at the Wattson and the clamps still seem to be wired, would need to be wireless really.

They are 'wired' - but only for the first metre or so where they're plugged into a wireless sender unit which is powered by built in batteries or a small transformer unit. The display unit is also 'wireless' (apart from a power cable and even that could be replaced by batteries if you wanted).

I'm really not sure of the range of the wireless link - doubt it would be hundreds of metres but mine seems to work OK through a concrete floor.

squeegy

I already have a Current Cost energy monitor that was provided free by Eon that measures my usage. So if I just bought a PV monitor, then would the Current Cost one still work ok when im exporting electricity etc??

EricMears

squeegy wrote: »

I already have a Current Cost energy monitor that was provided free by Eon that measures my usage. So if I just bought a PV monitor, then would the Current Cost one still work ok when im exporting electricity etc??

All that any 'clamp on' monitor does is to measure the current going through the circuit at that point. But it cannot differentiate between current flowing in and current flowing out.


Your 'Current Cost energy monitor' will continue to work OK but will only show the nett position and you'd have to guess whether you were importing that amount or exporting it.


To make a Wattson work effectively, you really need to be able to fit your sensors in positions where you know what the current is doing. I for instance have one sensor on the wire that feeds from inverter and another within the consumer unit that measures how much current is going to the RCD-protected circuits.

Dave_16

I don't know a lot about the subject so could be wrong, but here's what I have.

The monitor I use to measure the generation is a geoenergy solar pv, that would fit on the flasher on your generation meter, it also sends a wireless signal to the monitor.
You can get a monitor that fits around the main cable on the meter to monitor the input into the house of leccy.

Dave

tunnel

EricMears wrote: »

To make a Wattson work effectively, you really need to be able to fit your sensors in positions where you know what the current is doing. I for instance have one sensor on the wire that feeds from inverter and another within the consumer unit that measures how much current is going to the RCD-protected circuits.

Anyone know how to set up a wattson with multiple systems(is it possible?). I have a current cost monitor but its a very poor source of info, never being able to tell which way the leccy is running.
I'd love to have something that's a lot more informative so I can adjust my usage but don't want to "invest" until I know its capable of the job at hand, something I'm not sure of whether any of the cluster of monitors available can do with multiple systems.


tunnel

Kernel_Sanders

squeegy wrote: »

I already have a Current Cost energy monitor that was provided free by Eon that measures my usage. So if I just bought a PV monitor, then would the Current Cost one still work ok when im exporting electricity etc??

If your inverter has bluetooth, you might be able to use an Android app with a £25 smartphone (which would make an extremely portable PV monitor).
Anybody currently monitoring via Android?