Support for external energy meter possible?

[bouwew]

Describe the feature
I was wondering if it was possible to send data from an existing energy sensor present in HA to my SolarEdge inverter.
I did some deep browsing and finally ended up here: https://github.com/marcelrv/solaredge_meterproxy
@WillCodeForCats does this github contain anything useful that would help in realizing the requested feature?

I'm not expecting you to add this feature, I'm just wondering if there's anything useful in this github that could point the way for someone that has the background knowledge and some interest in adding this feature 🙂

The origin of my find is this blog post (sorry it's in Dutch): https://zonnigbreda.blogspot.com/2022/05/p1-port-als-energiemeter-voor-solaredge.html

[WillCodeForCats]

If you connect a solaredge inverter to that program it will appear as a meter in this integration.

This integration doesn't directly read meters, it reads the inverter. The inverter is providing the meter data as a proxy to whatever actual meter is connected to the inverter's RS485 bus.

[bouwew]

@WillCodeForCats Good idea to change my Issue into Discussion!

My thinking was, if I can make the SolarEdge inverter believe there is a energy meter connected, I can enable Export Control as Limit Control Mode.
Nowadays I have pay extra for any kWh I export, I'm looking for ways to automate how much I export so I can minimize that extra cost.

I was reading this: https://knowledge-center.solaredge.com/sites/kc/files/feed-in_limitation_application_note.pdf
Looks like most of the described functionality is already present in the Integration 🙂

I looks like you have implemented 2-way Modbus communication, so would it be possible to add to this by by taking the data from a HA energy sensor and send its value (e.g. every 10 secs) to the Solar Edge inverter, fooling it in to thinking the data came from a SolarEdge-compatible Energy Meter?

A complicating factor would be how to get the sensor data from another Integration into this Integration. Looks like there are various aspects to my wish that all need to be covered...

[WillCodeForCats]

No, you can't send meter data to an inverter over TCP.

You need to connect the meter (or proxy pretending to be a meter) to one of the inverter's RS485 bus ports and configure it in SetApp (inverters with no display) or through the display.

[WillCodeForCats]

So after looking at it a bit (upstream source is https://github.com/nmakel/solaredge_meterproxy) the benefit I would see to providing all meter data through the inverter is that the data would be synchronized and appear on the SolarEdge monitoring platform. You can't send meter data to a SolarEdge inverter over TCP, so that wouldn't have any use in this integration.

I also have an external consumption meter in addition to an E+I meter connected to my SolarEdge meter, but if I try to use the entities for the external meter and calculate them with the data provided by the SolarEdge inverter since they are read at different times the load may have changed and the calculation is wrong.

If you are trying to synchronize meter data with inverter data you might try to do that through a blueprint or template or automation that triggers the refresh button entity button.solaredge_i1_refresh (or your actual inverter ID if not 1) provided by my integration to immediately read the inverter's data when your external meter entity updates. This button requests an immediate read outside of the polling interval setting.

If you are trying to add your external meter data to the SolarEdge monitoring platform then your only choice is to set it up as a hardware device the inverter can poll through the solaredge_meterproxy program.

[bouwew]

OK thanks, appreciate the detailed feedback!

[WillCodeForCats]

You're welcome to to try it, of course, but I'm not convinced you'll get anywhere trying to write to the meter registers since inverter commissioning doesn't let you select TCP as a meter source.