Now you can have solar analytics without buying a consumption meter.
The Consumer Data Right (CDR) isn’t something we’ve covered here yet, but it’s now the basis for a new product being launched by Solar Analytics: Integrated+, which the company describes as “consumption data without the meter”.
The potted version of the CDR is this (from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner):
“It allows you to ask for your data to be securely transferred to an accredited provider so you can investigate, compare and access services more easily”
Solar Analytics is now soft-launching Integrated+ solar and consumption monitoring, with head of business development Nigel Morris announcing it in a LinkedIn post.
Integrated+, available to customers on a standard Solar Analytics subscription ($6 – $10 per month) enables consumption data to be pulled from retail meters, Morris posted, across the NEM, after work by “the brilliant data science team at Solar Analytics.”
Crucially, it works without additional consumption metering:
“Solar Analytics integrates with eligible inverters by collecting solar generation data via API. Eligible solar owners can now add consumption data from the retail meter with Integrated+ and the wizards blend it seamlessly together.”
Morris said the company reckons Integrated+ will save solar owners $500 up-front, because they avoid buying and installing inverter consumption metering hardware1.
It’s already been trialed in Victoria, Morris said.
Key features of Integrated+ include collecting data with five-minute granularity on 75% of sites; solar data is live while consumption data is a day behind; and it works on sites using Goodwe, GE, Fronius, Sungrow or LG inverters.
Where the CDR fits
The reason the CDR is important to Integrated+ is this: without this reform, Solar Analytics would not have access to any retail meter data.
Right now, the CDR only demands the “big three retailers”, Morris told SolarQuotes – but that covers 65% of energy customers in Australia.
To create Integrated+, Solar Analytics had to gain CDR accreditation, which places protection about both the privacy and the security of customer data.
The three retailers covered by the CDR are AGL, Origin, and Energy Australia; but by the end of the year, all retailers with more than 10,000 customers will have to comply.
Solar Analytics said that expansion will add another 20 retailers to the list, and cover around 99.3% of Australia’s electricity consumers.
Limitations
There are some limitations to the CDR, Morris told SolarQuotes in an email.
Chiefly, the data is available to solar owners but not to installers, since installers are third-parties and would have to get CDR accreditation.
“Secondly, retail meters currently only provide data once a day which is fine for quarterly billing, but less ideal for solar owners. This means although solar data is live, consumption data will always be historical and a day behind.”
That matters more to engineers and nerds than to most owners, he said.
There are, however, upsides to the solution too, Morris said.
“Because the retail data is the billing data, discrepancies caused by differences in latency or granularity are gone – the data will match perfectly. Secondly, because many retail meters separately measure controlled loads such as hot water systems, pool pumps and other major loads, this data will be available to owners early in 2024 allowing them gain more insight into energy consumption.”
Watch out for a detailed post on Solar Analytics Integrated+ – and whether it’s worth it – from Finn next week.
Footnotes
- For 3-phase owners this could be closer to $1000, and even more if it negates the need for an expensive switchboard upgrade to accomodate the 3-phase meter and circuit breaker ↩
About Richard Chirgwin
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I am in VIC and was on the trial using DNSP (Powercor) data, not retail data. There were a whole bunch of bugs including no data after 8pm-ish (when inverter goes into standby – not even DNSP data) and inability to net the data (i.e. consumption = DNSP inflow – DNSP outflow) properly. Also, Powercor data was only available in 30min chunks. Solar Analytics eventually gave up and said sorry but too hard. Looks like they’ve ditched DNSP data for retail data. Have not tried again as I’m not with one of the big 3 retailers.
Thanks for giving us a try during our early Beta trials in Victorica Evan and sorry it didn’t work out in your situation. The big difference now is all the bugs have been ironed out thanks to early adopters like you – we salute you!
If you’re in VIC, there’s a free way to monitor usage without the subscription/CDR. You can attach a device to your power meter that looks at the flashes (when you use power) and puts it in an app. It’s to-the-second accurate – when I toast bread, it shows up within a second.
It’s free in VIC under the Energy Upgrades scheme: https://www.powerpal.net/invite/MPK7X737
Happy user for the past couple years. It’s helped us find an ideal power plan for our usage, and helped us identify a few devices (TV, game systems) drawing power even when they’re off.
I really like what Powerpal have done. Only downside is that according to their website “Please note that Powerpal does not report on solar energy exported to the grid as this is not available via the optical interface on the meter.” So you don’t get a complete picture or economics or how much excess is available.
It would be nice if SolarAnalytics integrated with PowerPal for real-time info.
I have been building a complete record of my smart meter recordings available from Ergon (QLD). I started with 30 minute records a few year ago, integrated 15 minute records for about 6 months and finally in the last dew years 5 minute interval data.
All done in Excel. This allows me to see usage by tod, seasonal, monthly, year by year with max/min/mean and compare available tariffs.
Ergon also offer online tariff comparisons based on current years figures.
So far differences are less than $50 a year saving.
Mike
Is there an ETA for consumers on Alinta to access Integrated+?
This sounds interesting although is it actually a step backwards? I thought OCPP was the approach being taken to get live solar generation and electricity usage data on a live basis with providers such as Charge HQ able to provide services based off the data gathered.
I have a Tesla Powewall 2. I was just wondering if Solar Analytics is going to give me any information that the Tesla app doesn’t?