Here is prior to running the SCR-485, I had a 1KW smart switched hotwater switch, was reacting every second with Home Assistant automation to solar generation and grid not being consumed. The peak flat spot was the hot water heating. Was as good as I could get prior to the SCR-485.

I have now installed a 2.4KW Element knowing that the SCR-485 allowed for auto adjustable consumption output based on consumption and grid state, allowing for a higher direct self-use, and heating the water faster. PS I had the 1KW element in the system before because this way prior I could generally had more possibility to still heat the water on cloudy days. This new SCR-485 will now allow on these days to send any available power to the hot water instead of exporting any that didn't reach my previous automation (2.1KW solar and > -50W of grid).

Here is the next day with the SCR-485. Note the gaps was an issue where the device restarted itself and did not auto start, the second I am not sure what happened I full full powered the device down and back on to get it to start again, also after having a shower. You can see the significant self use increase which is great.

This day everything worked flawlessly, well no issues not caused by me. The spike at around 8am was us cooking breakfast. I re-installed the latest build of the ESP yaml to my device just before 10am, note about 10:30am is my dishwasher running, causing some grid consumption. Again you will see great direct self-use. At the end of the day, was me using some high consumption tools.

Hi ,please help me to confirm the status in part1-part 3 in the below pic.
1: the thermostat cut the power of the heater,yes?
2: the thermostat cut the power of the heater,yes?
3: some high load consumption worked(not the heater of the boiler),yes?

1. I am not sure if the thermostat kicked in, probably not for the fact that the hot water was heating again later in the day, see diagram below, device set the power to 0 at 11:17am, unsure why.  At 2:30pm where there is not blue line until the next day the power was accidently switched off to the device.

Figure 1

2. As per the diagram above, between 1 and 2 in your diagram there is no corresponding set_power recorded in HA. So again I am not sure if the thermostat kicked in

3. Is the induction cooktop

Explanation, two arrows at the bottom was the dishwasher running, the question mark I have no explanation as there is no corresponding set_power during that time refer to figure 1 above.

Figure 2

Hope this makes sense, if not please advise?

laoliu

Hi ,please help me to confirm the status in part1-part 3 in the below pic.1: the thermostat cut the power of the heater,yes?2: the thermostat cut the power of the heater,yes?3: some high load consumption worked(not the heater of the boiler),yes?

10 June

1&2 above, scr-485 going crazy, it was hard to see due to the refresh rate, but there were clouds rolling in the device did not seem to handle this very well.

3. I turned the device off, and reset the values as recommended (https://www.iammeter.com/newsshow/quickstart-scr485) threshold to -50 hysteresis to -25, why it switched off I have no idea, because it heats later.

4. Air fryer was used

5. Spikes here are Oven turned on, as it gets to temp and drops consumption

6&7. Spikes here are Oven still on, and it appears the hot water seems to have turn on again towards the end of point 6, why this turns off again not idea because if goes on about 10 minutes later point 7.

8. Wife had a shower about 3-4pm, so the hot water started heating, this spike was due to the known bug where the device set the set_power to 2.4KW (max) last value it was set to after the automatic cycle which was 4pm, the reason it stopped later, was I upgraded the yaml as suggested to fix this bug.

11/06/2024 there seems to be a bug in the latest yaml where the device at my set Start Time of 8am, that the auto mode switch turned off.

When enabling the auto switch mode with the toggle, the set power was set to Max power 2.4KW, there was no readings in Grid Power or Grid Power REV (the bug) this should have been set to 0 if it had not data in the Grid readings.

To fix this issue a hard power off on the device was required. Grid readings came back and the device is now working as expected.

11 June update.

The spike at 8:20ish was caused by issues with the meter, it was powered down and back on again.

The dip at about 10am no idea why this happened because clearly the hot water was still heating.

about 10:30 my dishwasher switched on and the other spike at around 11am was the ending of the dish washer cycle.

It seems that in the morning hours, the SCR-485 can fully utilize the solar power, but probably due to the lack of other loads in the afternoon, more of the solar electricity generated is fed back into the grid. I'm not sure if the self-consumption rate of the solar energy has increased when calculated over the entire day. From what I can see, it's best to shower at noon so that the surplus solar power can be used for heating water in the afternoon.😄

yeah this is a very large hot water system for 2 people. Wife was not at home using hot water all day that day either 😀

laoliu

It seems that in the morning hours, the SCR-485 can fully utilize the solar power, but probably due to the lack of other loads in the afternoon, more of the solar electricity generated is fed back into the grid. I'm not sure if the self-consumption rate of the solar energy has increased when calculated over the entire day. From what I can see, it's best to shower at noon so that the surplus solar power can be used for heating water in the afternoon.😄

Hi Danwnz:

please contact us by email, we will ship you a WEM3080 for free , as we promised here in https://www.iammeter.com/newsshow/activity-engineering-prototype-scr485

You can install it in front of the SCR-485 and use the meter type of "load" in the same place

It will help you analyze the real power consumption of the heater more easily  

Regards

Laoliu

Not impressed today with the operation of the device heating my hot water only a few hours from the morning, when I could heat it for free, and then never switching on at 8am as set. 

Now this is only a guess. The removal of the time zone from the yaml appears to force the time zone to my docker container that appears to not be honouring my TZ variable set in the container, from what I read it should be using UTC? hence the sliders do not work as I would imagine they should be intended, I had to move the slider to 12am and it was 12pm at my location to get the device working. This is not UTC time as we are +10

Can you provide confirmation of the following is the correct and supported settings for the time zone in Brisbane?

server: au.pool.ntp.org

timezone: Australia/Brisbane

Above approx 2am to 3am is my hot water heating by the scr-485 settings.

About 12:40pm our oven was turned on, hence the power just above the generation, which turned off just before 1pm.

Just after 1pm the hotwater heats again

3:30pm I hard powered of the device as I do not want a repeat of yesterday, heating my water at night, when it could have started for free 5 hours later.

Oh wow that would be amazing, as I don't really know what the hot water consumption is per day currently, only guess

laoliu

Hi Danwnz:please contact us by email, we will ship you a WEM3080 for free , as we promised here in https://www.iammeter.com/newsshow/activity-engineering-prototype-scr485You can install it in front of the SCR-485 and use the meter type of "load" in the same placeIt will help you analyze the real power consumption of the heater more easily  RegardsLaoliu

Hi:

Thanks for your testing
1 please upgrade to the latest version that was released 1hours ago, my colleague has added some features you need (restore power value setting) https://imeter.club/topic/607
2 we have shipped the WEM3080 out , please check your email.

Thanks for the awesome updates, amazing improvements.

And thank you so much for the WEM3080 I really look forward to adding this to my hot water heating consumption.

laoliu

Hi:Thanks for your testing1 please upgrade to the latest version that was released 1hours ago, my colleague has added some features you need (restore power value setting) https://imeter.club/topic/6072 we have shipped the WEM3080 out , please check your email.

13 June update.

Turned on when expected 8am and turned off as expected 3pm, only one unexplained issue at 8:15 where the device adjusted set_power higher than it should have.

The water is already boiled by noon. 😴 It's clear that there isn't enough load to consume the surplus solar energy in the afternoon.

Hi:

we found two issues 

1 The max power seems incorrect in configuration.

It should be 3.6kw, but set 2.4kw now.

2 the "load power" and "special load" are nearly the same in each picture, such as below.

But the "load power" is calculated by this formula load power = inverter power - feedin power.

And the "special load power" is measured by the energy meter directly ,like this https://imeter.club/topic/364?sort=default

Why they are nearly the same?

How do you measure the "load power" by a meter?

Hi,

The rated power of my hot water cylinder was 3.6KW, I had previously a 1.2KW element in there, I put this in there because even on cloudy days i could heat hot water without paying for it or very little. Prior to installing the SCR-485 I had a modbus automation that was switching the element on and off at 1 second reactivity  based on my consumption and generation, which for me could emulate or get the best self consumption. I had been previously looking for a device like this, but there was very few around.

Now I got this device I could put a 2.4KW element to heat the water faster and use more available generation during any part of the day, and which would be able to use most if not all my generation. The big problem is here that the days have been close to perfect every day, this device would shine again when the days are more cloudy.

I used to run a pool pump each day as well, but this has been converted to a a DC pump running off dedicated solar panels, I did this because of the huge number of cloudy rainy days here in Brisbane over the past 4-5 years where all this was costing me money a lot of the time, now the pump runs from about 6am to 6pm every day, even on cloudy days and costs nothing just slows down with a special MMPT controller.

Load, I have the IAMMeter three phase meter that had been installed I thought as per the https://www.iammeter.com/quickstart/wem3080t-quickstart#wiring-in-a-single-phase-solar-pv-system, which became very annoying very quickly due to pretty much ALL your other setup documentation using clamp A for solar generation, so I had to constantly modify any code provided.

Maybe it is setup wrong, I set it all up to attempt to continue uploading to PVOutput but in any config I could not get it to work, I was advised by others in the PVOutput forum that no one uses it because it did not work. So I had to use a blueprint in HA and some automations to upload to HA, it was working like this for me so kept everything as it was, I wanted to continue to use PVOutput because I had 10 years of historic data in there. It took some additional calculations to get no - figures from the generation which leads to no upload, as well as a calculation of the mean power consumption every 1 second over 5 minutes to upload rather than just the power at the exact 5 minute point in time more accurate.

laoliu

Hi:we found two issues 1 The max power seems incorrect in configuration.It should be 3.6kw, but set 2.4kw now.2 the "load power" and "special load" are nearly the same in each picture, such as below.But the "load power" is calculated by this formula load power = inverter power - feedin power.And the "special load power" is measured by the energy meter directly ,like this https://imeter.club/topic/364?sort=defaultWhy they are nearly the same?How do you measure the "load power" by a mete

Yeah, also here in Brisbane the days on average start clear n the mornings then progressively get worse throughout the day if they are going to, so I have always tried to heat the hot water as early in the morning as possible in case the afternoon weather clouded in or rained.

laoliu

The water is already boiled by noon. 😴 It's clear that there isn't enough load to consume the surplus solar energy in the afternoon.

Here is some examples of cloudy day with my old automations switching on and off to the gen/consumption.

For me in this scenarios above would be now where this SCR-485 would really shine, all the red sections of generation I would be able to heat my hot water, and export nothing, effectively banking all that spare power into heating (effectively 30c per KW/h) rather than exporting for 3 cents, as well as heating the hot water as much as possible each day.

Sorry forgot to show the meter

Hi Dan,

Thank you for the information.

1. Could you please provide a photo of your distribution box?
2. Is it possible for you to use phase B exclusively to monitor the heater loop?

BR

Laoliu

1. Lol, good luck there it is mess with monitoring :-D, I will get onto this later.

2. The WEM3080 arrived today, I would prefer to use this to monitor the hot water directly?

laoliu

Hi Dan,Thank you for the information.Could you please provide a photo of your distribution box?Is it possible for you to use phase B exclusively to monitor the heater loop?BRLaoliu

2. The WEM3080 arrived today, I would prefer to use this to monitor the hot water directly?

In fact, if phase B can be used to monitor the water heating, it would be preferable to using a separate WEM3080.

You don't need to use an independent phase (phase B) to monitor the load. The IAMMETER cloud will use the following formula to compute the load power: load power=inverter power−feed-in power

From the power chart you provided, the calculated load power is nearly the same as the "special power" which is monitored by phase B.

Therefore, using phase B to monitor the total load might be somewhat redundant.

It would be better to use phase B to monitor the water heating as a "special load".

Ah makes sense now, this way I can monitor my hot water with CT B and use the new device to monitor air conditioning or cooking circuits.

laoliu

2. The WEM3080 arrived today, I would prefer to use this to monitor the hot water directly?In fact, if phase B can be used to monitor the water heating, it would be preferable to using a separate WEM3080.You don't need to use an independent phase (phase B) to monitor the load. The IAMMETER cloud will use the following formula to compute the load power:
load power=inverter power−feed-in power\text{load power} = \text{inverter power} - \text{feed-in power}load power=inverter&n

Results from the 14th, everything seemed to work fine today. The spike at about 8:30am was the jug the SCR-485 was off during that spike. I had a shower at about 11:30 and within about 2-3 minutes after the hot water heating kicked in, at the end of the day was after my wife did some cleaning.

I Have modified as suggested the CT B to hot water heater you can see the difference now at 9:20 onwards

I have switched it back, because all my other integrations were affected by this change, since CT B is actually load, so switching it to special load works in your portal nowhere else. I am going to have to calculate load in all my other integrations before I can do this.

This is very cool given the nominal cost of the diverter hardware. Mine cost me about $1k for a stand alone unit. I am also in Brisbane and have only spent about $3 over the last three years heating hot water. I have a 250 L hot water system with a 3.6 kW element and a 5 kW Solar system. 

I have some suggestions for you.

1. Install an 80 deg C thermostat. They just clip in at the base of your hot water system. They cost about $40 AUD
2. Install a Shelly Uni and temperature sensor at the thermostat. Just poke the temperature probe under the insulation at the thermostat.
3. When the temperature reaches 73 deg C, turn the heater off.
4. Only top up from grid power if the temperature falls below 40 deg C and stop when it gets to 40 deg C again.
5. On the third day if it has not reached 65 deg C at least once, heat to 65 deg to control Legionaires disease

Here is my hot water plot for today. You can see the temp drop where I had a shower last night.

1. 
   
   An 80 deg C thermostat is probably a bit hot for long term life of a hot water system but by using a temperature probe, we create our own setpoint at a lower level above the standard 65 deg thermostat. This lets us  bank more energy for cloudy days without impacting so much on the hot water system life.

I am interested in this device too, My thought given my hot water energy needs are covered already was to Use it to run an oil heater during winter with surplus solar energy to reduce the need to run a reverse cycle air conditioner in the evenings.

Hi had already turned up my hot water, at about 75 deg and I actually don't want it any higher, because it would have damaged the bushings in my new kitchen tap ware, I could feel them getting tight as they expanded with the heat when mine was turned all the way up. And this was to bank the hot water as you say, i can go about 3 days without heating, we take pretty quick showers.

I would really love to have a thermostat on the hot water, as well as my pool.

Wow that is a huge drop in temp over night after your shower. We don't shower at night in winter for that reason, unless necessary.

15th June

Again today, worked perfectly the big spike at about 11 was me installing another monitor on my hot water which added to the consumption, was in a rush as I had to go out so didn't pursue it any further how to seperate them. 12:30 and 1:30ish is the dishwasher.

16th June

Worked as expected, I adjusted the turn on time to 9am because 8am the device had a slight tendency of importing from the grid where after 9am the set_power was much more stable following the generation. The big spike at the beginning of the day was cooking on the induction cooktop.

Installed the new meter this morning and put it on the hot water. nice to see what it would have cost me if I was importing the power, and how much total consumption the heating is using each day.

17 June results, all worked as expected today, with one exception for whatever reason a 3pm the device decided to turn on and back off causing that little spike, just before 9am was the jug, 1-2pm was the dish washer.

June 18 Results from PVOutput, because  I redeployed docker and didn't realise it wasn't working. Power controller today worked as expected.

19th June very similar to the previous day, worked as expected

Still recommend using the phsae B to monitor the heater power only.
if you need to use the total load power in other integrations, just use grid power + inverter power instead

we plan to add some new features to analyze the benefit of the SCR-485, 

Ex: analyze the billing for the heater after introducing the SCR-485
Such features would require
1 monitor the heater power independently as a special load
2 the special load monitoring would be in the same "place" as the monitoring of "solar" and "grid".

Sorry ,we also describe some reasons here.

https://imeter.club/topic/613#content3288

Let us keep discussing this issue  only under this topic 

20 June

First cloudy day of the month, so great to be able to now utilise the full amount of available generation instead of exporting.

The missing hot water heating in the morning was due to me updating the firmware on my two meters, power cycling them with the breaker switch, this turned off my smart power switch to the SCR-485 previously installed for my previous hot water automations. Noticed this at about 10:20am.

21 June 

Mostly cloudy day full utilisation of any generation thanks to the scr-485, previously I would have been heating the water at about 1KW and any generation over about 2KW would have been exported to the grid, now I harness all that generation into heating the water, as a result on these days also hotter water if not at full temp. couple of spikes at about 11 & 12 there was my dishwasher running

This is indeed a positive outcome, just as we had hoped. It seems the regulation effect is more pronounced on cloudy days than on sunny ones. We appreciate your continued reporting. I believe this result is sufficient for us to proceed with advertising.

We will soon add a report to calculate the electrical consumption of the 'special load' and the proportion of this consumption that comes from the solar surplus.

22nd very cloudy day, still had some patches where the hot water heated

23 June, due to little heating on the previous day, we have much more self consumption throughout the day

24th Worked as expected today, was asked to make some changes so that special load could be shown for some new reporting, you will see this in the evening of this day. So now I have CT B connected to my hot water for monitoring, where previously it was on my load circuit for all my automations and other reporting which I still need to fully fix up. My load monitoring is now being done by a separate monitor.

Here is a quick sample of the change requested, can you please advise if this is setup as needed, it looks fine to me?

Hi Dan,

Thank you for your help.

Everything is OK now.

The new features will be available within a few days. Then, you will be able to analyze the percentage of the "special load" in the total load and the percentage of the solar surplus in the "special load."

Before that, you can try disabling/enabling the display of each power source by clicking the points below. If only the "load" and "special load" options are kept on, there will be only two power curves in the chart, which will help you analyze the composition of your load.

I look forward to it

laoliu

Hi Dan,Thank you for your help.Everything is OK now.The new features will be available within a few days. Then, you will be able to analyze the percentage of the "special load" in the total load and the percentage of the solar surplus in the "special load."Before that, you can try disabling/enabling the display of each power source by clicking the points below. If only the "load" and "special load" options are kept on, there will be only two power curves in the chart, which will help you analyze

Is there any way I can reset the highlighted sensors, as they are now not what they were before and will now skew my calcs and results?

Hi:

https://imeter.club/topic/277 this is the reset kwh command , it need the RS485 wiring and can only reset total 3phase kwh data together.
I will ask my colleague to check whether there is a command that can reset the kwh data of one phase .
But I am a little confused about your requiremetns
This phase B is only used for the "special load" now yes?
I think you did not process the "special load" in HA before, yes? why do you need to process it in HA now?
I think what you need to do is just switch the source of data from phase B to the independent WEM3080, yes?

25 June, worked as expected today

26 June worked as expected turned the hot water on early to measure the temperature of the heat sink during operation, has finished heating so providing the output

This is our latest report for the analysis of the "special load"

Please have a try 

https://imeter.club/topic/622

Here you can see an increase of my self consumption in the current bill period month

Here is the new report only for a couple of days because I have only recently switched the monitoring clamps around to support this new special load report.

You can also view the result based on the "day",which would be more useful.

In addition , please give me a whole snapshot of the below snapshot, I also want to view the value on the right axis in that chart, the value of the self-use consumption value.

Per day break down as requested. I included the day prior to setting up the CT clamps so you can see the difference with the special load calcs.

Yearly report shows a good upwards trend in the self consumption, other reports to not show this trend as well due to a huge skew due to weather factors impacting self consumption

laoliu

You can also view the result based on the "day",which would be more useful.In addition , please give me a whole snapshot of the below snapshot, I also want to view the value on the right axis in that chart, the value of the self-use consumption value.

27 June, all as expected

28th Water finished heating for the day, all as expected, consumption during no generation was dish washer at about 1pm