When we carry out a photovoltaic installation in our homes with solar panels, we generally have an inverter that provides us with statistics on solar production and also on the consumption that we are making at a certain moment. However, this information is generally not in real time, but is normally delayed by approximately 5 minutes. This means that, if it is a cloudy day or a sporadic cloud passes, we do not have production in real time to make the most of them regardless of power from the electrical network. Today in this article we are going to explain what you must do to always see it in real time, without any type of delay.
This is how Shelly EM and Shelly 3EM work
There are two devices that are highly recommended to measure in detail the electrical power that the solar panels are providing us , in addition, we can also measure in real time the power that we are demanding from the electrical network . Taking into account the power measured in W or kW, the photovoltaic production and the accumulated consumption can be calculated very easily, although the device itself will already take care of that internally, without us having to take care of it.
The Shelly EM and Shelly 3EM are devices that incorporate one or more clamp meters , with the aim of correctly measuring the W or kW that are circulating through the alternating current cables. Generally, the current clamps incorporated by the purchase of this device are 50A, so they are capable of measuring more than 11kW without any problem, although there are also larger clamps of up to 120A, but generally this is for companies where they have larger photovoltaic installations. large and a higher power demand.
These devices can be found on Amazon. The main difference between the Shelly EM and the Shelly 3EM , is that the first of them allows us to install two current clamps, therefore, we can measure with one clamp the solar production that reaches the electrical panel, and with another clamp the power that we demand from the electrical network or the one that we inject into the network if the value is negative. The Shelly EM model has an adapter that can be purchased optionally for a DIN rail and to be able to place it directly in the electrical panel, as long as you have space.
The Shelly 3EM is a more professional model that allows us to connect up to 3 clamps, although generally this device will be used for companies where they have more complex installations.
In both cases, this device will connect directly to our WiFi network to communicate locally and through the Shelly Cloud . When we connect it to the WiFi network, we can access it via the web and see all the configuration options, as well as the monitoring of the solar panels. We can do this from the web browser or from the app, since in both cases we have exactly the same configuration options.
This device is compatible with Google Home, Amazon Alexa and also incorporates the MQTT protocol to integrate it perfectly into home automation. For example, if we have a home automation system like Home Assistant , we can integrate this Shelly EM to perform real-time statistics on the power demanded, both solar and electrical, and also see the total consumption of our home. Below, you can see how some graphs and statistics would look:
If we integrate it into the ” Energy ” section, we can see a history similar to that provided by investors, although here we can use this information for many more things. For example, we can see the net consumption of the network, the self-consumption percentage, a graph of consumption for each hour and filter all of this to make advanced comparisons.
Thanks to Shelly EM and Shelly 3EM, we will be able to monitor our solar production in real time at a certain moment, so that our home automation system takes care of making the best use of that solar energy, since today the sale of surpluses is about the floors, and it is more worthwhile to air-condition the house with radiators or heat pumps and thus we can complement the gas heating.
