Hi guys… 
I’m new to the OpenEnergyMonitor community and excited to start using the system to monitor my home’s solar energy production. I recently installed a small solar array and I’ve been looking for ways to track how much energy I’m generating and using in real time. After some research, I found out that Emoncms might be a great solution for this.
However, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with where to begin. I’ve already got my solar system up and running, but I’m not sure what hardware or sensors I need to properly connect everything to Emoncms. From what I’ve read, it seems like the emonPi or emonTx might be suitable, but I’d appreciate any guidance on which would be best for monitoring a solar array.
Also, once I have the right hardware, what’s the process for setting up Emoncms to start logging the data? Are there specific configuration steps I should be aware of for solar monitoring, or is it fairly straightforward?
I also check this: https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/getting-started-with-solar-pv-monitoringqliksense But I have not found any solution. Could anyone guide me about this? Any advice from those of you who have experience with solar monitoring on this platform would be really helpful. I’m looking forward to learning more and getting everything set up!
Thanks in advance!
Respected community member! 
Welcome, @rowekeg724, to the OEM forum.
I can well understand you feeling overwhelmed, there is so much information here and the system is so versatile that it’s difficult to see the wood for the trees.
EmonCMS is a content management software package, and there are fundamentally two versions: one “cloud-based” which is managed by OEM and which is ultimately paid for (though buying your hardware here earns quite generous credits), or there’s the Raspberry Pi version. The RPi version runs either on the emonBase (a RPi with a radio receiver attached) or on an emonPi (a RPi with the measuring part of an emonTx attached). To get the measurements from your solar array to generate the information for emonCMS, you need either an Ethernet or Modbus link from the inverter direct into the RPi running emonCMS, or you need to measure voltage & current either with an emonPi or with an emonTx.
I’m afraid there’s no simple answer. If you only want to measure your solar production - can you get the data out of your inverter? If so, all you need is a Raspberry Pi and emonCMS. We’d need to know a bit more about your inverter before we could say we can connect to and interpret the data in the format of the inverter.
If you can’t get the data directly and you need to measure the voltage and the current, then you need an emonPi to measure the current, an emonVS to measure the voltage and power your emonPi, and a current transformer to clip over the cable on the output side of your inverter. Having connected everything, setting up should be little more than switch on and wait for something to appear, because emonCMS will be inside your emonPi. There’s no essential difference between monitoring solar and monitoring anything else. I take it you’ve looked through the Docs section where most of this is explained (until you’ve given up - overwhelmed 
).
But the really important question for you to consider is - is the solar production all you’re interested in? It might be now, but if you have thoughts about extending your monitoring further, it could be that what I’ve written isn’t the best solution long-term. And where your inverter connects into your house wiring and where you intend to install the monitor are both fairly important too - is there a reasonable Wi-Fi signal, for example.
Whatever else you do, if you have the slightest doubts, do ask. We’ve had newcomers who’ve not asked and ended up buying the wrong things, which is at best upsetting.
1 Like