shaggy-solar/.claude/skills/power-usage/SKILL.md

name, description

name

description

power-usage

Analyze where the power is going across the install — load vs PV generation vs grid vs battery flow, plus EVSE charging sessions. Use when the user asks "why is my battery draining / how much am I using / where are the watts going / is the car charging / what's my solar production / power consumption", or wants an energy balance or breakdown. Read-only; this skill measures and explains, it does not change anything.

power-usage

0. Load context

Shell cwd is the repo root; anchor paths there:

ROOT="$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"; SNAP="$ROOT/.claude/skills/lib/solar-snapshot"

Read $ROOT/.claude/skills/REFERENCE.md for entity names. Key sign conventions: pack pack_current is signed (+ = charging, − = discharging); inverter mppt*_input_power is PV in (W); ac_output_active_power is load out (W).

1. Instantaneous energy balance

# Generation (PV) + load, per inverter:
"$SNAP" -w 10 -g 'lvx6048_[12]_(mppt1_input_power|mppt2_input_power|ac_output_active_power|grid_voltage|device_mode)/' 'homeassistant/sensor/+/state'
# Battery flow, per pack (sum the pack_power = V×I yourself):
"$SNAP" -w 16 -g 'lifepower4_[1-6]_(pack_voltage|pack_current|soc)/' 'homeassistant/sensor/+/state'
# EV charger:
"$SNAP" -w 8 'openevse/status' 'openevse/power' 'openevse/amp' 'openevse/voltage' 'openevse/session_energy'

Then state the balance in words:

• PV in = sum of all mppt*_input_power.
• Battery = sum of (pack_voltage × pack_current) over 6 packs. Negative total = discharging (load exceeds PV+grid); positive = charging.
• Load out = sum of inverter ac_output_active_power.
• EVSE = openevse/power — and the EVSE load is a subset of total load, so a draining battery with the car plugged usually explains itself here.
• Grid: device_mode Bypass/Line means grid is carrying/supplementing; Battery mode means running off the bank. The LVX6048 has no clean grid-power entity, so infer grid = load − PV − battery_discharge.

Sanity: PV + grid + battery_discharge ≈ load (within metering noise). A big residual means one feed is mis-reported — note it (e.g. the known lvx6048_1_battery_voltage ~10 V glitch will corrupt any pack-power math that uses the inverter's battery reading; always use the pack entities for battery flow).

2. "Why is the battery draining?"

Walk the chain: is PV low (night/shade/§5 of troubleshoot-inverter dead string)? Is load high (check ac_output_active_power and EVSE power)? Is the inverter in Battery mode instead of using grid (device_mode)? Pin the drain on the largest negative contributor and say which.

3. EVSE sessions

"$SNAP" -w 10 'openevse/status' 'openevse/state' 'openevse/session_energy' 'openevse/total_energy' 'openevse/vehicle' 'openevse/pilot' 'openevse/max_current'

• status active = charging; sleeping/disabled = not drawing. vehicle = plugged.
• session_energy (Wh) this plug-in; pilot/max_current = the current cap the EVSE is signalling. Idle EVSE publishes little — a short empty capture is normal.
• For history/trends (daily kWh, past sessions), the data lives in Home Assistant's recorder, not on MQTT — direct the user to the HA Energy dashboard / sensor.openevse_total_day|week|month. PI18 has no per-day inverter energy (memory project_lvx6048_no_daily_energy_query); only ET lifetime Wh exists.

4. Report

Give the live balance (PV / load / battery / grid / EVSE, with numbers and signs), the headline ("you're pulling X W from the bank because load Y W > PV Z W, car is taking W W"), and point at HA recorder for anything historical. This skill never changes settings — if the answer is "shift charging to solar hours" etc., suggest it as advice, don't actuate.