Project Description

When you have solar panels and your home energy consumption is below solar production, you might want to store the energy (or resell it to your energy company).

One easy way is to use it to use it on the house water heater (which otherwise might be only turning on at night).

But a on/off switch is usually not enough, the heater might need more power than currently produced, solar production might go down if there are some clouds / shadows, etc.

There are devices called Solar Router / Optimiser which can better monitor tune heater in order to maximize solar produced energy without using power from the grid.

I plan to check the various alternatives (there are a lot of DIY versions around) and see if it could be interfaced (or triggered) by Home Assistant directly

Goal for this Hackweek

Understand exactly how Solar router works. Choose ONE Solar Router design and see how to integrate that in HA Bonus: try to assemble one.

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