Energy management
Managing a solar system, battery and home energy
Your own energy does work at home first.
The Energy screen shows the flow — solar, battery, grid, consumption — and turns it into money, so you decide by cost rather than by an icon.
In short
Managing home energy means the system decides where every kilowatt-hour goes: first to the battery, then to the boiler and other flexible loads, and only then to the grid. HoumeOS does that with rules that execute locally, measures production and consumption in real time and turns them into money under your day and night tariff.
The priority of the flow
Surplus from the roof is not exported for pennies while there is something to heat downstairs. The order is explicit and stored on the server: battery, then boiler, then export to the grid with a safety margin.
- A 0.2 kW margin towards the grid — so the system neither feeds back nor draws
- The battery is protected: a reserve it never drops below, and a warning when it is under it
- The boiler switches on only on real surplus and enough charge
- Summer logic: air conditioners are a flexible load, not a sacred one
Costs under a day and night tariff
You set the price per kilowatt-hour for both zones and the platform turns every measurement into money: cost for the day, the week and the month, plus a bill forecast computed from the actual consumption curve rather than from the average of last year.
- A peak at nine in the evening is different news under a day and under a night tariff, and you can see which one you are looking at
- Reports by day, week, month and year, from the server history
- Water passes through the same screen: the meter and the litres per zone are a cost, not just a number
The car in the same priority
EV charging is governed by the core with a solar priority and keeps the rule that the battery comes before the car. The charger map shows how much of the charge comes from your own production and when charging waits for surplus.
Automations that save while you are not watching
The rules run on the server: heating before you arrive, switching idle loads off in Away mode, irrigation that stops on rain, strong wind or wet soil. Every execution is stored with an explanation of why it happened.
How to read a kilowatt-hour
The same data serves the economics as well: how much of the production stayed at home, how much went to the grid, when it is cheapest and when it is expensive. That is the basis on which you also judge whether the battery should be bigger.
What works today and what is coming
We do not present upcoming work as available. This list matches the roadmap.
Works today
- Energy screen with flow, priorities, costs and a forecast
- Day and night tariff with costs by period
- EV core with solar priority — the battery before the car
- Battery-below-reserve alert generated on the server
Coming soon
- Real inverters and meters through a broker and drivers — today the flow is simulated over the real contract
- Spot prices in real time for optimisation by price
Later
- Predictive optimisation from forecast and habits
- Automatic detection of consumption anomalies
Frequently asked questions
What is a home energy management system?
It is software that measures the production, the consumption and the storage of energy at your home and decides where every kilowatt-hour goes. In HoumeOS the Energy screen shows solar, battery, grid and consumption as a single flow, and the server rules distribute the surplus by priority. Costs are computed under your day and night tariff, so you see money rather than only watts.
How does HoumeOS handle solar surplus?
When production exceeds consumption, the energy moves through a fixed priority: it charges the battery first, then heats the boiler when there is enough charge and solar priority is active, and the remainder is exported to the grid with a small safety margin. If the battery is full and there is nothing to heat, the export happens by itself. The rule runs on the server and applies even when the screen is off.
Can it manage a battery and a boiler at the same time?
Yes, and that is the point of priorities. You set thresholds: below which charge the battery is preserved, when the boiler is allowed to take surplus, and what margin towards the grid must remain. The system looks at both devices together — if the battery is under its reserve, the boiler gets no right to load even though the roof is producing.
How are day and night tariff costs calculated?
In the configuration you set the price per kilowatt-hour for the two zones and their hours. The platform computes cost by period — day, week, month, year — and produces a bill forecast from the actual consumption curve. The chart shows which tariff you are looking at, so you never compare things that are not comparable.
How does a Modbus inverter connect?
The integration panel today describes Modbus as a transport: a catalog, an editor and a step-by-step guide with a TCP check whether the address answers at all. The driver that reads the registers of the inverter is the next step and we do not present it as ready. For a specific inverter brand we are ready to write it together with your installer.
We show the system on a live screen
The demo starts from your question: which devices, which protocols, which scenarios.