What an optimised month! ⚡️ Integrating the VW ID.3 and adopting a new battery strategy led to record self-sufficiency (99.63%!) & massive savings (£168.62!). Our solar system is working smarter than ever. Click for full details on our efficiency gains and cost breakdown

https://www.bazmac.me/blog/solar-grid-battery-overview-may-2026

#SolarEnergy #SolarPanels #SolarGeneration #OctopusEnergy #OctopusWatch #SolarBattery #OctopusExport #SolarPV #HeatPump #IntelligentOctopusGo #IOG

I just finished the first version of a small software for managing the balcony solar plant of some family members. It works completely without any cloud or any other people's computers or even an internet connection.

There's three panels and an inverter with a battery. Any power initially is used in the household, then if anything is left it's put into the battery for later use, or if the battery is full, fed it into the public grid (to get a small financial compensation). Or if you want to, you can override that and just charge the battery, or even charge it from the grid.

Of course the inverter originally needs a cloud connection and comes with an app that needs a cloud connection and obviously is described as AI-powered very smart whatever. But there is a documented API for getting and setting some values! Interoperability! Without the cloud, there's hardly any logic built in. So I had to create it myself.

It's just a few HTTP requests, json, a SQLite database, and some very basic HTML.

#pv #solar #solarpower #inverter #balkonsolar #balkonkraftwerk #fernfusion #solarbattery #solarpunk #photovoltaics #solarenergy #noAI #noCloud #interoperability #openStandards

My car is set to charge from 1.30pm to 5pm via Octopus Intelligent Go. I normally do a force discharge of my home batteries between 4pm and 7pm. This means it will overlap by an hour. Can I export and the car charge at the same time?

My home battery cannot see the car charger and the car will not charge from the home battery.

#OctopusEnergy #IOG #SolarBattery

The Zendure SolarFlow 2400 AC+ promises to 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽 — 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗽 during the day, 𝗯𝘂𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 in the evening. HEMS AI energy management, LFP battery, Home Assistant integration via HACS.

But read the fine print on the 2400W output before you buy.

Full review: https://youtu.be/Kc4m1ruou_E

#Zendure #HomeAssistant #SolarBattery #SmartHomeJunkie
https://youtu.be/Kc4m1ruou_E

☀️ Our best April yet! We're thrilled to share our solar generation report. Record April production (610 kWh!) covered 91% of our house usage and resulted in huge savings compared to the new price cap. The West/North facing panels are now coming more and more into play.

www.bazmac.me/blog/solar-grid-battery-overview-april-2026

#SolarEnergy #SolarPanels #SolarGeneration #OctopusEnergy #OctopusWatch #SolarBattery #OctopusExport #SolarPV #HeatPump #CosyOctopus

I finally got our daily electricity cost graph working in Home Assistant! 📈 Plotly can be a steep learning curve, but a little Claude help made this visualisation happen. The biggest issue I had was calculating the export savings.

If you're tracking your solar savings, read on👇

www.bazmac.me/blog/visualizing-your-solar-savings-tracking-electricity-costs-on-home-assistant-with-plotly

#SolarEnergy #SolarPanels #SolarGeneration #OctopusEnergy #SolarBattery #OctopusExport #SolarPV #homeassistant

Our March 2025 Solar & Battery Performance Report is live! 📊

Real-world data, generation graphs, and insights into how seasonal changes affected output and storage.

Read the full post 👉 www.bazmac.me/blog/solar-grid-battery-overview-march-2026

#SolarEnergy #SolarPanels #SolarGeneration #OctopusEnergy #OctopusWatch #SolarBattery #OctopusExport #SolarPV #HeatPump #CosyOctopus

The solar production for March was 342.10 kWh which was surprisingly good. It is our second best March ever as you can see here.

https://www.bazmac.me/blog/solar-generation-year-on-year-comparison

It was going to be a tough compare to last years remarkable, 407.30 kWh

#SolarEnergy #SolarPanels #SolarGeneration #OctopusEnergy #SolarBattery #OctopusExport #SolarPV #CosyOctopus

Our February 2025 Solar & Battery Performance Report is live! 📊

Real-world data, generation graphs, and insights into how seasonal changes affected output and storage.

Read the full post 👉 www.bazmac.me/blog/solar-grid-battery-overview-february-2026

#SolarEnergy #SolarPanels #SolarGeneration #OctopusEnergy #OctopusWatch #SolarBattery #OctopusExport #SolarPV #HeatPump #CosyOctopus