Solar PV monitor

Dovelady

I am not even sure if I am even on the right board but i’m sure someone will point me in the right direction. We have had PV panels for ten years now but our trusty Wattson monitor which shows us when we are generating excess energy has failed. Sadly the Wattson is unavailable and we are looking for a similar replacement. Dies anyone have any ideas please 

QrizB

Depending on exactly what you want to do, you could go for something as simple as a clip-on energy meter (I use an ancient and long-discontinued CC128 but I've seen the Geo Minim recommended recently by others) or, at the other end, an all-singing, all-dancing myenergi system.

If you have a smart meter you might find your IHD will give you enough info (although you might not).

Dovelady

We declined the smart meter so don’t have one. What I used the Wattson for was seeing a reading when we were making over 2kw and I would then put the washing machine on. Nothing overly complex, the Wattson was brilliant .

QrizB

Dovelady said:

We declined the smart meter so don’t have one. What I used the Wattson for was seeing a reading when we were making over 2kw and I would then put the washing machine on. Nothing overly complex, the Wattson was brilliant .

A simple clip-on monitor like the Minim would do that for you. It's £40 from Amazon (link for CT version). If your generation meter has a flashing LED, you might want to buy the LED version; if not, the CT version will work but you might need to apply a bit of brainpower to decide whether you're importing or exporting.

(The description says "not suitable for solar PV" but that's a bit of a fudge, it's entirely suitable for measuring solar generation. What it can't do is distinguish between import and export if you fit it to your supply meter tails.)

Dovelady

QrizB said:

Dovelady said:

We declined the smart meter so don’t have one. What I used the Wattson for was seeing a reading when we were making over 2kw and I would then put the washing machine on. Nothing overly complex, the Wattson was brilliant .

A simple clip-on monitor like the Minim would do that for you. It's £40 from Amazon (link for CT version). If your generation meter has a flashing LED, you might want to buy the LED version; if not, the CT version will work but you might need to apply a bit of brainpower to decide whether you're importing or exporting.

(The description says "not suitable for solar PV" but that's a bit of a fudge, it's entirely suitable for measuring solar generation. What it can't do is distinguish between import and export if you fit it to your supply meter tails.)

Just clicked on the link to the Minim and Amazon said we bought one already, I seem to remember we gave it to my son as not suitable for our solar generation needs.  I really just want a Wattson again ☹️ Thanks for your input though, much appreciated.

Petriix

We've got a Geo Solo II. It's been great but they've just discontinued the online data analysis so it's just the unit itself which is less useful.

We also have a Myenergi Zappi for the EV and, while the data relies on CT clamps, it's always within 0.2kWh of what the meter says. So now I can at least get the data (one day at a time) from the Myenergi app.

Dovelady

As a follow up, saw a Wattson on Ebay, unused but stored in box in attic for years. Cost £10 and is now installed and working perfectly.

paul991

having just knocked my geo display off the table. does any one have a idea of a cheap simple display monitor for pv production.I use a shelly for statistics and have a smart meter display  that just just says exporting ,unfortunatley my samil inverter is not wifi enabled

gefnew

paul991 you could use any of the old monitors issued by the energy companies way back when.
something like this.
E-ON Energy Saving Monitor NEW in box | eBay

Petriix

I'm yet to find anything which counts the flashes on the meter like the Geo. Such a shame they cut their cloud service.

ispookie666

I use the Geo mini (led flash counter) to track solar generation, previously used it on my main electric meter, but after swapping to smart meter I repurposed it. 

Probably not the answer, but why not install a generation meter which has flashing led/pulses for generation?