PV Profiler

The PV Profiler connects your solar panels to the scheduling engine. Instead of only looking at the cheapest grid price, it lets the scheduler prefer time slots when you have solar surplus — free energy that would otherwise be exported to the grid.

When you need the PV Profiler

You should add a PV Profiler if:

You have solar panels on your roof
You want the scheduler to prefer running appliances when you have solar surplus, not just when the grid price is lowest
You have (or are willing to create) a free Solcast account for solar forecasts

Setting up Solcast

Power Profiler uses Solcast to get solar production forecasts for your location. You need a free account before adding a PV Profiler device.

Go to toolkit.solcast.com.au and create a free Hobbyist account
Add your rooftop site — enter your address, panel orientation (azimuth), tilt angle, and total capacity in kWp
From your Solcast dashboard, copy your API key and your rooftop site's Resource ID
In Homey, go to Apps → Power Profiler → Settings
Enter the API key and Resource ID

Note

The Hobbyist plan allows 10 API calls per day. Power Profiler uses about 4 calls per day, leaving room for retries and restarts.

Adding a PV Profiler device

Go to Devices → + (Add Device) → Power Profiler → PV Profiler
Select your PV inverter — the device that reports how much power your solar panels are currently producing
Give the device a name (e.g., "Solar Profiler")

Your smart meter (P1 meter) is not selected during pairing: the app detects it automatically. See App Settings → Smart meter to check or override it.

What you see on the dashboard

Capability	What it means
Power	Live PV output from your inverter (watts)
PV yield today	Total energy your panels produced today (kWh), calculated from the inverter's power readings. Resets at midnight.
Forecast today	Corrected forecast for remaining production today (kWh)
Forecast tomorrow	Corrected forecast for tomorrow's total production (kWh)
Correction factor	How much your actual production differs from the generic Solcast forecast (×)
PV surplus	Current power available after household base load (watts)
Return price	Current feed-in tariff from your energy provider (EUR/kWh)
Grid price	Current grid energy price (EUR/kWh)
Base load source	Shows whether base load comes from your smart meter or the fallback value

Flow cards

PV forecast updated

Fires when a new solar forecast is received from Solcast.

Tokens available:

Token	Meaning
`yield_today_kwh`	Corrected forecast for the remainder of today (kWh)
`yield_tomorrow_kwh`	Corrected forecast for tomorrow's total production (kWh)

Example: WHEN PV forecast updated (PV Profiler) → THEN send a notification with [[yield_tomorrow_kwh]] kWh expected tomorrow

Flow conditions

Condition	What it checks
PV is producing above [threshold] W	Whether the PV inverter's current power exceeds a threshold you set
PV forecast tomorrow is above [threshold] kWh	Whether tomorrow's corrected forecast exceeds a threshold you set

Refresh solar forecast

Forces an immediate Solcast forecast refresh instead of waiting for the next automatic check. This action is available on the Virtual Energy Provider device, since the Solcast forecast it refreshes is shared by all your PV Profilers.

Warning

Uses 2 of your 10 daily Solcast API calls (see Setting up Solcast above). Avoid triggering it more than a few times a day.

How the correction factor works

Solcast provides a generic solar forecast based on weather data and your panel specifications. But your actual yield often differs from that prediction:

Nearby trees may cause partial shading at certain times of day
Panels degrade over time
Your roof orientation might not perfectly match what you entered in Solcast

The PV Profiler tracks your actual yield per 30-minute time slot and compares it to what Solcast predicted. Over time, it builds a correction factor for each slot. For example, it might learn that in the morning you typically produce 85% of what Solcast predicts, but in the afternoon it is 110%.

After about 7 days of data, the correction stabilizes and forecasts become accurate for your specific installation. During the first week, forecasts may be less accurate — this is normal.

flowchart TD
    A["☀️ Solcast API\n(generic forecast)"] --> B["🔧 Correction Engine"]
    C["📊 Actual PV Yield\n(from your inverter)"] --> B
    B --> D["📈 Corrected Forecast\n(specific to your installation)"]
    D --> E["💰 Effective Prices\n(for the scheduler)"]

Base load: with and without a smart meter

The PV Profiler needs to know your household's base load — the power consumed by everything except the appliance you are scheduling — to calculate how much solar surplus is actually available.

With a smart meter (recommended)

When a smart meter (P1 meter) is detected or configured:

The app reads your household's grid consumption from the smart meter
Base load = grid consumption + PV production (this correctly accounts for both importing and exporting)
The app learns your base load pattern per 30-minute slot — for example, higher in the morning (coffee, shower) and evening (cooking, TV)
The surplus calculation is accurate: surplus = PV production − actual base load

Without a smart meter

When no smart meter is connected:

The app uses a fixed fallback value (default: 200W, a typical Dutch household draws 150-300W in standby)
This is less accurate because your actual base load varies throughout the day
You can adjust the fallback in App Settings → Smart meter if the default does not match your household

Tip

A P1 smart meter (like the Homey built-in energy module or a P1 dongle) significantly improves scheduling accuracy. If you have one, check in App Settings → Smart meter that it was detected.

PV Profiler settings

Setting	Default	What it does
PV inverter device	(set during pairing)	The Homey device the PV Profiler monitors for power output. Read-only after pairing.

Note

The base load fallback is not a per-device setting. It is configured once for the whole app in App Settings → Smart meter and used by every PV Profiler and by the Virtual Energy Provider.