At the end of last year, I had a solar system installed at home. And as a proud owner, I wanted to visualize the most important indicators of the system in a simple way. For this purpose I've used SolarEdge API, MySQL as storage and Grafana for vusualizing indicators. But let's go step-by-step.

SolarEdge API Access

The SolarEdge API can be accessed via HTTPS protocol only. SolarEdge monitoring server supports both HTTPS/1.0 and HTTPS/1.1 protocols. All APIs are secured via an access token: every access to the API requires a valid token as a URL parameter named api_key. For example: api_key= L4QLVQ1LOKCQX2193VSEICXW61NP6B1O
An API key can be generated to enable access to specific sites (via Site API key) or to all sites within a specific account (via Account API key).

Running in Docker

Docker-Compose Files

Docker-compose.yml file with setup for all the containers looks like this:

services:
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana-enterprise
    container_name: solaredge_grafana
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana
      - ./datasources:/etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources/
      - ./dashboards:/etc/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/
    labels:
      org.label-schema.group: "Monitoring"    
    networks:
      - common_network
    depends_on: 
      - mysql

  mysql:
    image: mysql
    container_name: solaredge_mysql
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - mysql_data:/var/lib/mysql
      - ./scripts/initdata.sql:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/2.sql
    labels:
      org.label-schema.group: "Database"
    networks:
      - common_network
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin" ,"ping", "-h", "localhost"]
      timeout: 20s
      retries: 10

  solaredge.monitoring.demo:
    container_name: solaredge_openapi
    image: solaredgemonitoringdemo:latest
    restart: on-failure
    hostname: solaredge.monitoring.demo.openapi
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: src/SolarEdge.Monitoring.Demo/Dockerfile
    networks:
      - common_network
    depends_on: 
      mysql:
        condition: service_healthy

volumes:
    mysql_data:
    grafana_data:

networks:
    common_network:
        driver: bridge

All you have to do is set your SolarEdge Site Id (MY_SITE_ID) and API key (MY_API_KEY) in the docker-compose.override.yml file.

services:
  solaredge.monitoring.demo:
    environment:
      - ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Development
      - ServiceConfig__SolarEdgeSiteId=MY_SITE_ID
      - ServiceConfig__SolarEdgeApiKey=MY_API_KEY
      - ServiceConfig__MySqlConnectionString=server=mysql;user=solar;password=solar;port=3306;database=SolarEdge;
      - ServiceConfig__OverviewJobCronSchedule=0 0/10 8-18 ? * * *
      - ServiceConfig__EnergyDetailsJobCronSchedule=0 0/5 8-18 ? * * *
    ports:
      - 9900:80

  grafana:
    environment:
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER=admin
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin
      - GF_USERS_ALLOW_SIGN_UP=false
      - GF_PATHS_LOGS=/var/log/grafana/
      - GF_LOG_MODE=console file
      - GF_LOG_LEVEL=info
      - GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ENABLED=true
      - GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ORG_NAME=SolarEdge Monitoring Demo
      - GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ORG_ROLE=Editor
      - GF_DASHBOARDS_DEFAULT_HOME_DASHBOARD_PATH=/etc/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/SolarEdgeMonitoring.json
    ports:
      - 3000:3000

  mysql:
    environment:
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=SolarEdge
      - MYSQL_USER=solar
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=solar
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=solar
    ports:
      - 3306:3306

Setup the Containers

To execute compose file, open Powershell, and navigate to the compose file in the root folder. Then execute the following command: docker-compose up -d --build --remove-orphans. To check all running Containers use docker ps.

Update Energy details/overview data

You can update your energy details/overview data for custom or predefined date ranges with help of SolarEdge monitoring OpenAPI service which is available locally on http://localhost:9900/swagger/index.html address:

Monitoring dashboard

Your data is visualized with Grafana which is available locally on http://localhost:3000 address. Enter default user name (admin) and password (admin), skip changing password, and voila, your SolarEdge monitoring dashboard is here:

You can also change the time range and the graphs will be updated accordingly.

Enjoy!

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2022 17.2.6 or greater
• .NET SDK 8.0
• Docker

Tags & Technologies

• .NET 8
• Docker
• SolarEdge Monitoring Server API
• MySQL
• Grafana

Licence

Licenced under MIT. Contact me on LinkedIn.

SOLAREDGE is a trademark and brand of SolarEdge Technologies Ltd.