Tesla Solar Roof Local API

[aesculus]

Is there a local API for the Solar Roof like there is for the Gateway? I know that the app has a separate panel for the Solar Roof from the GW. I have also used the GW local API but all solar is bundled in the site/solar returns.

I have three solar sources (3 invertors) and I wanted to see if I could get the data from the Solar Roof inverter (Delta) directly. The other two are Fronius inverters and they have their own app that is internet connected to both inverters. Tesla had me install a little black box and connect it to my network (that connection is not the most reliable) and I assume that is how they get the separate data for it.

I have used the mProfessional app to see the output when standing at the inverter, but it does not think it has a network connection. So Tesla has something special going on with the little black box and their back ended systems in order to capture that unique inverter in my system.

 

[trautmane2]

I no longer have a Delta inverter for my solar roof, but when I did I never figured out if it was possible to tap into the mechanism(s) Tesla used to communicate with it. If I remember correctly, there is a Zigbee connection in addition to the near-field bluetooth connection the M-Professional app uses. I'm guessing Tesla uses the Zigbee connection to link the black gateway box to the Delta inverter.

I had to resort to using M -Professional and taking phone screenshots of historical data when I wanted to look at string production data from the Delta inverter. As painful as that was, it's better than what the Tesla inverter offers. The stand-alone Tesla inverter (I don't have powerwalls) only locally exposes real-time string data for the first 15 minutes after startup - no historical data and you have reboot the inverter.

 

[Matt-FL]

I no longer have a Delta inverter for my solar roof, but when I did I never figured out if it was possible to tap into the mechanism(s) Tesla used to communicate with it. If I remember correctly, there is a Zigbee connection in addition to the near-field bluetooth connection the M-Professional app uses. I'm guessing Tesla uses the Zigbee connection to link the black gateway box to the Delta inverter.

I had to resort to using M -Professional and taking phone screenshots of historical data when I wanted to look at string production data from the Delta inverter. As painful as that was, it's better than what the Tesla inverter offers. The stand-alone Tesla inverter (I don't have powerwalls) only locally exposes real-time string data for the first 15 minutes after startup - no historical data and you have reboot the inverter.

I've been contemplating getting hall effect DC current sensors to place on the string input into the inverters. It would, in theory, provide some data on combined string data for each MPTT. I've not found the right one yet that provides real time data input and not just a display. It's on my (long) list of items to figure out.

 

[aesculus]

My little black box is on a Wi-Fi extender that is really unreliable. The little black box never shows it has an ethernet connection either which is suspect since it is plugged in to the extender. But the Tesla Solar Roof data that shows in the app jives with the total solar production when I add it to the data I get from Fronius so somehow it seems to be working.

Somewhere Tesla must have an API for the Solar Roof and we just don't know about it.

 

[Matt-FL]

The API wouldn't be in the roof itself, but in the gateway or inverter. You can get decent information from gateways and the PW+ inverter using Powerwall Dashboard github.

 

[aesculus]

The API wouldn't be in the roof itself, but in the gateway or inverter. You can get decent information from gateways and the PW+ inverter using Powerwall Dashboard github.

The data you get from the PW API is from the solar CTs. If you only have one solar source that is fine. When you have multiple solar sources they are all combined into the one reading. I want the data just from the Solar Roof inverter.

 

[aesculus]

An interesting observation today:

I noticed at about 7PM that my solar roof had stopped reporting its production around 4pm today. Turns out it and some cameras had lost connection to a wireless access point. I rebooted the WAP and after a few minutes I went back to look at the solar production for the day in the Tesla app for the Solar Roof. Miraculously it had collected all the data since 4pm and was in fact producing a whooping 100W.

So it appears that the little black box and inverter will cache the production data until it gets connected. For how long is uncertain, but certainly for a few hours at least.

 

[trautmane2]

So it appears that the little black box and inverter will cache the production data until it gets connected

What I've noticed for longer connection outage periods (e.g. a few days) is that the production total gets evenly distributed across the outage period. So I'm guessing the total-since-last-store is cached but not more detail.