Using node-red to control the energy use of a household by optimising the usage of solar energy is a very relevant topic for this forum. I learn a lot by reading all your contributions, thank you very much.
I did a lot of measuring in my house to understand what is used, how much and when. The most important energy consumption:
Freezers: We have two freezers. The pumps are very small, and are designed to run a short time and then have a longer pause (1min / 5 min). Forcing them to run longer to store energy will just reduce the lifespan of the pumps, which destroys all the savings.
Hot water: about 4kWh/day. The trick here is, that my boiler has a separate control input to signal when excess solar power is available. I use this as a simple mechanism to use excess solar power to generate hot water.
Heating: we use manually heating with wood, node-red can't help here.
Electric car: It needs about three times as much energy than the whole household. Therefore my current focus is there. See my ongoing adventure here: control charging for Tesla
The hints about solar energy predictions are a great help and I want to try this. Please keep up the discussion and the very helpful hints.
Kind regards,
Urs.
