Automatic Energy Cost Savings: With Solar power and the SMA Sunny Home Manager

Sunny Home Manager 2.0

The best way of cutting your electricity costs as much as possible is simply to turn on your home appliances when your rooftop PV system is generating electricity. The problem with that is that we are often at work or otherwise not at home in the middle of the day when the PV system is generating the most electricity. This means that we can’t switch our appliances on ourselves. That’s why we manage our home appliances automatically with the SMA Sunny Home Manager 2.0. It switches our home appliances on when the PV system is generating sufficient electricity. Read on to find out how we can use this system to save hundreds of euros on electricity costs every year.

How to save money with solar energy

Modern PV systems generate electricity that is much cheaper than any you could purchase from the utility grid. You can achieve the best savings by switching on your energy-intensive home appliances, such as dishwashers, washing machines and dryers, only when the PV system is currently producing power. Directly using solar energy from your own PV system in your home is referred to as “self-consumption”.

Using the Sunny Portal monitoring system and the SMA Energy app, system operators can keep an eye on their PV systems at all times. At this time, the Partlin family is using 63% of the solar energy it is generating directly for home purposes (self-consumption) and supplying 77% itself (self-sufficiency), which means that the family needs to purchase only 23% of its electricity from the utility grid.

How do I switch things on when I’m not at home?

On the average day, we’re often not at home when the PV system is generating electricity. We might be at work, at school or university, doing our shopping or visiting friends and family. At first glance, it’s not quite so easy to make sure that our home appliances spring into action just in time for our PV system to be supplying energy.

So what is the solution? That’s easy: leave it to the Sunny Home Manager.

Automatically switching appliances on and off

As part of our family’s solar journey, we have integrated several compatible automatic load-break switches controlled by the smart Sunny Home Manager.

How does it work?

We have connected the Edimax load control sockets to our Wi-Fi network. The Sunny Home Manager communicates with them so it knows how much energy each appliance uses. It then does some pretty advanced calculations based on weather data (sourced from the internet), knowledge about how the PV system has performed and is expected to perform, plus historical information about how the appliance uses electricity. All of this is put together and the Sunny Home Manager can then decide when the appliances should be switched on so as to ensure that as much as possible of the energy consumed comes from the PV system. It passes this information on to the switches, which then switch the appliances on at the correct times.

SMA Sunny Portal-load power

Smart home energy management: The Sunny Home Manager 2.0 can be connected to all major home appliances via Wi-Fi and radio-controlled sockets and optimizes the Partlins’ energy consumption. It automatically switches on home appliances with flexible usage times when the PV system is supplying energy, which means that the family cuts down on electricity costs and receives recommendations for saving even more energy.

What appliances are best suited to being controlled?

The appliances that are best suited to automatic load control via sockets are those that do not have fixed switch-on times. We have fitted our dishwasher, washing machine, dryer and swimming pool pump (a very important appliance, at least here in Australia!) with load control sockets.

Tip: To check whether an appliance is suitable for automatic control, just switch it on and then use the socket to switch it off. Wait two minutes and then turn it back on. If the cycle starts operating again and does not require you to press any buttons on the appliance, then it can be controlled by a load socket.

How much did we save, and what did we learn?

From June to October (I live in Australia, so that means winter), the load control switches saved me around $150 (just under €100) simply by making sure my appliances consumed electricity primarily when my PV system was supplying energy. If that continues for the whole year, that’s an extra saving of around $400 (almost €250) annually.

Helpful conclusions about the energy consumption: With the SMA Monitoring the Partlin family can track exactly what percentage of their connected devices are supplied with solar or grid power.

We also learned that the load control sockets give the Sunny Portal a lot more information. That in turn makes it easier to make sensible decisions about our energy use. Also, thanks to the Sunny Home Manager and all the extra energy-saving tips that it gives us, we can use our PV system to save energy even with appliances that aren’t connected to a load control socket. All we have to do is use the delay timer function that many appliances have. This isn’t quite as accurate as automatic control through the Sunny Home Manager, but it’s sometimes quicker and easier when we’re running out of the door to go to school or work.

So if you want to save more money with your PV system, make sure you turn on your appliances while the sun is shining. And the easiest and most automated way to do this is to use automatic load sockets controlled by your SMA Sunny Home Manager.

 

Want to find out more about smart energy management?

To Sunny Home Manager 2.0

 

Do you have any questions about SMA Sunny Home Manager 2.0 or energy management in general? If so, please feel free to comment. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can in another blog post.

 

5/5 - (5 votes)
31 Comments
  1. didier
    didier says:

    Hello, the list of compatible devices with sunny home manager is down, where i can find the list please?

    Reply
    • Anke Baars
      Anke Baars says:

      Hi Didier,
      please check this one: You can also find the document in our download area > “Monitoring & Control” > “HM-20” > “Background Knowledge” > “Technical Information – SMA SMART HOME Compatibility List for the Sunny Home Manager 2.0”

      Kind regards,
      Anke

      Reply
      • didier
        didier says:

        Thanks Anke, but i am not so happy with this small compatibility list. For example, i only found former devices from SHELLY, all the last generation’s devices available on the market are not mentionned. Is it just an update issue, or these last versions are not compatible at all?

      • Christiane Keim
        Christiane Keim says:

        Hello Didier,

        Our compatibility list is updated regularly and contains the products that can currently be used.
        In case you need further technical assistance, please contact our SMA Service Center.

        Sunny regards
        Christiane

      • didier
        didier says:

        WHY MY PREVIOUS ANSWER WAS ERASED?? HERE IS A COPY:

        Thanks Anke, but i am not so happy with this short compatibility list. For example, SHELLY products are mentionned but only former devices. The devices actually on the market seems not compatible, it is just as update problem or are they simply not compatible?

      • Christiane Keim
        Christiane Keim says:

        Hello Didier,

        Comments will not erased here anytime as long as they comply with our netiquette.
        They will be activated after processing and this may take some time depending on the volume of requests.

        Sunny regards
        Christiane

  2. Marcel Schemmann
    Marcel Schemmann says:

    Hello,
    I just read that currently the SMA home manager 2.0 does not support dynamic pricing, I must admit that is a bit of a shock. Is this coming soon? Otherwise I need to find a different solution for my home automation (I already have the SMA system; manager & 4 inverters, but would need to work around its limitations). Can I communicate with the home manager to request it to charge/discharge the battery or switch loads (I can pull the dynamic pricing info from the net). Perhaps some user groups are already doing this? Thank you and with best regards, Marcel

    Reply
    • Christiane Keim
      Christiane Keim says:

      Hello Marcel,

      Sorry for getting back you delayed.
      Our Sunny Home Manager offers various possibiities for home automation. Please check our website for further information or get in contact with our SMA Service for further support.

      Sunny regards
      Christiane

      Reply
  3. Youssef Mannaa
    Youssef Mannaa says:

    Hi,
    Can I use Sunny Home manager 2.0 to switch between power sources Grid/PV/Generator, even if I don’t have an SMA system installed.

    thanks.

    Reply
  4. Peter
    Peter says:

    Can the Home Manager divert power to a resistive hot water tank in lieu of a “Smart Diverter”?

    Reply
  5. Karan
    Karan says:

    Hello. Can you please advise name and model of SMA compatible load controlled sockets connected to dishwasher, washing machine etc that Scott has mentioned in the article to be used in Australia. Thanks.

    Reply
    • Christiane Keim
      Christiane Keim says:

      Hello Karan,

      You will find further information in the compatibility list.
      It is located in our download area on our product website of the Sunny Home Manager 2.0 (“background knowledge”).

      Sunny regards
      Christiane

      Reply
  6. nguyen ba thinh
    nguyen ba thinh says:

    we have trouble installing zero export combination SMA STP6000-20 and Sunny home manager 2.0 , need help

    Reply
  7. David Cambell
    David Cambell says:

    The benefits of solar panels are becoming more and more apparent as the technology evolves and prices drop. In addition to providing a source of renewable energy,

    Reply
    • Christiane Keim
      Christiane Keim says:

      Hello David,

      Thanks for your feedback. Following our blog rules, we had to remove your external link.

      Sunny regards
      Christiane

      Reply
    • Christiane Keim
      Christiane Keim says:

      Hello Eduard,

      Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.
      The Sunny Home Manager 2.0 can neither read out nor control the third-party inverter directly.
      The PV power could only be measured via our SMA Energy Meter (as PV generation meter) and then be displayed in Sunny Portal.

      Sunny regards
      Christiane

      Reply
  8. ARodrigues
    ARodrigues says:

    Hello.
    I have a sbs 2.5 and a RESU 10H, the SMA home manager is installed and working fine.
    What I would like to know is, if I install pv panels with microinverters or a central inverter from another brand, will sma home manager detect the production and charge the battery?
    Thanks.

    Reply
  9. MASUD YUSUF
    MASUD YUSUF says:

    Please I am interested in the SMA SUNNY HOME MANAGER 2 0 but how much will it cost me if I want to buy one?

    Reply
    • Christiane Keim
      Christiane Keim says:

      Hello Masud,

      As SMA is not selling to end customer directly, please get in contact with your local wholesaler or installer.

      Sunny regards
      Christiane

      Reply
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