Possible to track negative consumption?

Questions
#1

I have Powerwall batteries and a Rainforest Eagle. I am not currently tracking data from my Powerwalls directly because I’ve found this to be less reliable and I’d like pvoutput to be a back-up to my other tracking. The issue I’m having is that when my net export is greater than my solar generation, Pvoutput seems to be limiting it to a 0 consumption rate. This means my exports are underreported and credit/debit calculation is off. Is there any way around this?

Related to this, is there any way to manually fix the daily data so I can enter correct peak, off-peak and shoulder export numbers? I’ve done some searching and haven’t found a way.

Thanks for the help.

#2

PVOutput only tracks gross generation and consumption, so the numbers are always positive.

If the sensor is reading net data (positive = export, negative = import) then the Net data parameter should be passed when uploading with ‘Add Status’ API.

PVOutput will add the net data with gross generation from the inverter to calculate the gross consumption.

#3

Thanks for the help. I’m not using the add_status API - I’m pushing from Rainforest Eagle and pulling from Solar Edge. When solar is exporting to the grid, this seems to work fine, but when the Powerwalls are adding to this, it seems like the maximum export is capped at whatever the solar is generating. I’m assuming this is because the Eagle data is just being used to calculate consumption and then being forced to be non-negative. My numbers would come out correct if negative consumption were allowed or if the negative amount were added to generation. Right now, exports are underreported.

In the meantime, I’ve figured out that even though I can’t edit an output on the website to add the TOU import/export amounts, I can do so through the API, so I’m just patching the daily numbers each night.

#4

i had to solve this by making a 3rd system - the first is my original solar-only which is reported by snooping on my inverter’s traffic going to sunpower + an eagle. the second is the same but all the data comes from the powerwall’s CTs (which were added 5 years later).

the third has a custom uploader that i hacked up to look at the eagle data and if power is flowing to the grid, spoof it to look like solar generation. if power is coming from the grid, the solar is zeroed out and the data looks like home consumption. this way i can see how much i’m paying PGE - the other two systems are wrong since they don’t know anything about the powerwall…

#5

The Eagle Push data is treated as Net by default, so it should handle negative values (if any are sent).

Unless the Eagle isn’t measuring any of the powerwall data.

#6

Sorry - I missed this comment. The problem with the netting is that it seems to assume that total house consumption can’t be negative and applies a floor at 0 for consumption. This means that if the battery is exporting over and above house load (e.g. in a VPP), the extra export is ignored.