Introduction
Solar energy is an incredible way to power your residential or commercial building sustainably, but are you maximising its potential?
Shelly smart devices are designed to help you get the most out of your solar installation. With built-in, real-time power monitoring, you can track the power consumption of any connected device , with precision of up to 1%. This allows you to track, control, and optimise your energy use more effectively, automating devices to run on renewable energy and reducing reliance on the grid.
The Benefits of Shelly for Solar Installations
Shelly’s devices are small, versatile, and easy to install, making them ideal for a range of solar setups, whether for a single home, a commercial property, or a more complex solar energy project. This scalability means that your Shelly network can grow alongside your solar needs, accommodating future expansions or additional solar devices.
With real-time data on the performance of your renewable energy systems and access to 60 days of historical data, you can monitor exactly how much energy is generated and consumed every minute. This gives you complete control over your energy flow, ensuring you get the most out of your renewable energy devices.
Shelly enables you to set up custom scenes, schedules or triggers based on energy production, helping to reduce waste and cut costs while maximising renewable energy efficiency. For instance, you can set it to automatically turn off non-essential electrical devices (such as water heaters, pool pumps, or EV chargers) if your solar panels have generated less than a certain amount of energy on any given day. This offers a unique perspective over your energy flow, maximising the use of solar power and minimising dependence on the grid.
Shelly also supports multiple IoT protocols like MQTT, Webhooks and KNX to ensure compatibility with a huge variety of third-party smart home platforms; this allows your Shelly network to integrate smoothly with existing automations and systems, making it easy to customise and expand your solar setup as needed.
With Shelly, you don’t need to rely on an external cloud to manage your devices. This local control not only increases response times, making your system faster and more efficient, but it also enhances data privacy since your information stays within your local network. All in all, Shelly turns your solar installation into a high-efficiency, eco-friendly powerhouse.
A Spotlight on the Shelly Pro 3EM
The Pro series, including the Shelly Pro 3EM, extends this functionality beyond individual appliances, able to gauge the power energy usage of the entire house, as well as gauging energy production from multiple renewable sources like solar panels or wind turbines. These power-metering models can notify you if lights have been left on or rooms heated unnecessarily - great for the planet, and for saving money on your energy bills!
Designed to be mounted directly onto the DIN rail in a standard DIN enclosure fuse style box, they are the perfect choice for integration into sophisticated smart setups or new instals. The Pro series also include a LAN port for local network connections, offering increased flexibility, tighter security, and wifi free connections. All Shelly PRO devices feature overvoltage and overpower protection of the load, to protect electrical appliances and machines from dangerous peaks. Depending on the model, a Shelly Pro can include anywhere from one to four 16 Amp channels - that means control of up to four separate lighting circuits, two bi-directional motors, or an entire HVAC array, from a single Shelly device.
Offering a uniquely detailed bird’s-eye view over your commercial energy use, the PRO 3EM is one of Shelly’s dedicated power monitors, which are a series of DIN-mountable 3-phase energy metres capable of measuring between 120 to 400 Amps per phase. The PRO 3EM reports accumulated energy as well as instantaneous voltage, current, and power factor per phase in real-time.
While it’s versatile enough to monitor the consumption of many applications (home appliances, electric circuits, office equipment and more) individually, it truly excels at monitoring and controlling solar panels and wind turbines.
Shelly for EV Charging
Shelly relays provide a dynamic, eco-friendly approach to EV charging by responding to real-time solar generation, grid conditions, and energy rates. This allows EVs to charge when renewable energy is abundant (such as during peak sunlight) or during off-peak rate periods, optimising both energy use and cost savings.
Shelly’s modular design allows users to start with a single charging station and expand as needed without costly upgrades; unlike competitors who need complex setups and additional equipment for their smart devices, Shelly offers a simple, cost-effective solution, giving users an edge in sustainable, efficient EV charging automation.
Shelly for Industrial Automation
Shelly also offers powerful tools for monitoring and managing energy production in the industrial sphere, helping businesses optimise their solar power for sale on the energy market. With Shelly's real-time tracking and insights, you can monitor energy production closely and make data-driven, strategic decisions based on day-ahead pricing, allowing you to sell your generated power at optimal rates. This capability ensures that your industrial PV installation isn’t just meeting sustainability goals but is also maximising profitability by taking advantage of favourable market conditions.
Shelly devices also support peak demand management by instantly and automatically responding to peak and off-peak rates, helping to shift energy-intensive processes to lower-cost times and reduce overall power expenses.
The Shelly Pro 4PM even allows precise control over battery-operated systems, such as large commercial or residential storage batteries. It’s particularly useful for facilities with complex power needs, enabling prioritised charging and discharging.
Conclusion
Shelly offers precise energy monitoring, remote control of lighting, HVAC, and more, along with seamless integration into larger Building Management Systems (BMS), giving you valuable insights into your energy usage patterns. Over time, this data helps you optimise energy use, identify issues early, and make informed decisions for future energy needs.
Shelly provides an affordable, user-friendly solution for managing non-essential devices during peak energy demand or low energy generation, optimising energy usage and minimising dependence on non-renewable energy sources.
