Energy dashboards in Home Assistant

I spent quite some time configuring the Energy dashboard in #homeassistant. My primary objective was to track how much electricity my home consumes, how much my micro #PV produces and how much I return to the grid.

Finally, this is the result:

Today is a cold and sunny day, so my heat pump consumes a lot. My 800W solar panels and 600W grid-tied microinverter make only a dent in the overall consumption (~5%). The yellow circle and line show how much energy the sun produces and the purple shows how much I send back to the grid.

I want to send back to the grid as little as possible because I get nothing in return.

Now that I can track the exported electricity in Home Assistant, I see the results and I’m quite satisfied. For example, yesterday I consumed 96% of solar energy and returned 4% to the grid:

Home assistant calculates this value automagically, but I had to buy some sensors and create some ‘virtual sensors’. The following picture shows which sensors Home Assistant needs to correctly calculate all energy flows:

• Grid consumption sensor: I’m using a Tuya 3 phase zigbee clamp meter. I had to create additional ‘virtual’ sensor that adds solar production to the consumption. Reason: Tuya displays already reduced power (grid minus solar), because the inverter is connected to a house grid, which is after the Tuya meter.
• Solar production: I’m using a smart plug (Aqara EU-SP01 zigbee) which tracks the production of my small photovoltaic system.
• Return to the grid: This is a virtual sensor. I had to define it in configuration.yaml. It calculates how much is returned to the grid if Tuya sensor reports negative power on phase B (where my PV is connected).

#export to grid - if phase b power is negative, then make it positive else export is 0
  - sensor:
      - name: "Export power to grid"
        unique_id: "export_power_grid"
        state: >
          {% if states('sensor.tuya_power_b_patch') | float(0) < 0 %}
                  {{(states('sensor.tuya_power_b_patch') | float(0))*-1 | round (2) }}
          {% else %}
                  {{'0.0' | float(0) |round(2) }}
          {% endif %}
        availability: >
          {{ states('sensor.tuya_power_b_patch') | is_number }}
        unit_of_measurement: "W"
        device_class: power

How do I prevent exporting electricity to the grid? This is my first attempt: I created a simple automation which turns on water heating if export to the grid is > 150W:

Before I buy a battery system, I’ll have to think about some other ideas on how to prevent exporting to the grid… because what if the water in the boiler is already warm enough?