Newbie trying to understand how to monitor string output data from multiple inverters

[arcasinky]

Hi. To preface, I have three Tesla inverters (not Powerwalls) that I'd like to monitor. I can successfully use pypowerwall to fetch solar production stats from the cloud but those are summed across all three inverters. So I guess I need to use TEDAPI in order to get inverter-specific (and, ideally, string-specific) numbers across the entire array. And therein lies my confusion.

As I understand, to use TEDAPI these days I need to connect to each inverter's internal WIFI access point? How are folks who are monitoring multiple inverters/powerwalls on their dashboards doing that? Are they simply using a secondary WIFI adapter to connect to an AP, polling that inverter's data, disconnect and then connect to the next AP repeatedly?

[Nexarian]

@arcasinky Welcome! I have 2x of what I call the "vanilla" Tesla inverters (no Powerwalls). Your installation must be huge! The good news: You can monitor all 3 independently and view individual strings and alerts per inverter, or aggregate to your heart's content!

Anyway, to get started, here are my thoughts:

Step 1: Test access

Make 100% sure that you can access the inverters over your home lan. You no longer need to connect to each inverter's AP. That used to be true, but I found a way around that now, which others were able to get working (jasonacox/pypowerwall-server#105). Still, nothing stops you from connecting to the inverter's AP and running pypowerwall directly against 192.168.91.1 -- I used to have multiple alfa adapters connected through a high quality powered USB hub, but I no longer need that.

Here's how I would recommend you do instead. For each inverter, try this after installing the latest version of pypowerwall:

python -m pypowerwall.tedapi -host [IP of inverter] -gw_pwd [QR code password] -tedapi_api_version=V2026_06 --auth-mode=bearer

The IP of the inverter is whatever your home router is using. Could be through wifi or hardwired, doesn't matter. Both work.

You should get a response that looks like this for each one:

pyPowerwall - Powerwall Gateway TEDAPI Reader [v0.17.3]
 - Connecting to https://[IP]... SUCCESS

Connecting to Powerwall Gateway ***************

 - Configuration:
   - Site Name: My Home
   - Battery Commission Date: *******************
   - VIN: ***************************
   - Number of Powerwalls: 0
   - Firmware Version: 26.26.4 68c2bc82

 - Power Data:
   - Battery Full Charge Unknown (0Wh of 0Wh)
   - Battery: 0W
   - Site: 0W
   - Load: 0W
   - Solar: 0W
   - Solar_Rgm: -2W
   - Generator: 0W
   - Conductor: 0W

 - Configuration and Status saved to config.json and status.json

And those two json files should be full of data.

Once that's done, move on to setup and installation:

Step 2: Setup

I recommend you get a Raspberry PI with a POE & NVME hat (https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/3rd-party-poe-hats-pi-5-add-nvme-fit-inside-case/). I use the one from 52Pi. Then put a cheap NVME drive in it. The time-series InfluxDB that is used for long-term metric storage will likely burn up an SD card. POE is nice but you could just get a simple NVME hat if you don't use it.

From there, follow the instructions on the wiki to set up https://github.com/jasonacox/Powerwall-Dashboard. As part of the docker compose you'll need to augment pypowerwall-server with my branch (@jasonacox I'd appreciate your feedback) to get the TEDAPI version and auth mode arguments plumbed through.

The direct-to-LAN mode for Tesla inverters has taken a while for me to get all the code merged, and I'm now on the last pieces. I discovered it on valentine's day this year ❤️ and it's taken me until now to get it all finished! Here's a talk I gave on the topic