HA Energy Dashboard Real Time Power Monitoring

[rolandsteinmeyer]

With HA 2012.12 you can now configure power sensors in energy dashboard. I dedicated an entire HA installation to simulate how my energy usage would look like if I had a home battery with help of the battery_sim integration. It would be nice if the battery_sim integration also provided a simulated power sensor that takes into account simulated charging and discharging that can be used directly in energy dashboard.

[gwilford]

It's possible to create power sensors from the import and export energy sensors using the derivative integration (via Helpers or yaml). The derivative units ends up being kWh/h but that can be ammended with a few lines in customize.yaml:

sensor.simulated_export_power:
  unit_of_measurement: kW
  state_class: measurement
  device_class: power
  
sensor.simulated_import_power:
  unit_of_measurement: kW
  state_class: measurement
  device_class: power

I use the derivative power sensors in the Sunsynk Power Flow Card HACS integration...

[rolandsteinmeyer]

It's possible to create power sensors from the import and export energy sensors using the derivative integration

battery_sim already gives you current_charging_rate and current_discharging_rate in kW. No need for a derivate sensor. A template sensor is all it takes to calculate (current_discharging_rate - current_charging_rate) and this is exactly what I am doing right now. Energy dashboard expects a single sensor that goes positive when discharging and negative when charging. But my proposal is to provide a ready made sensor from the integration for this (and maybe also for the (simulated) grid power usage, which is also new in HA 2025.12 energy dashboard).

[hif2k1]

Sounds like a good idea. What should the sensor be called?

…

On Fri, 12 Dec 2025, 16:21 rolandsteinmeyer, ***@***.***> wrote: *rolandsteinmeyer* left a comment (hif2k1/battery_sim#186) <#186 (comment)> Battery sim already p It's possible to create power sensors from the import and export energy sensors using the derivative integration battery_sim already gives you current_charging_rate and current_discharging_rate in kW. No need for a derivate sensor. A template sensor is all it takes to calculate (current_discharging_rate - current_charging_rate) and this is exactly what I am doing right now. Energy dashboard expects a single sensor that goes positive when discharging and negative when charging. But my proposal is to provide a ready made sensor from the integration for this. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#186 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFAIZGM7FE6CZAYD7IWPRDT4BLTPDAVCNFSM6AAAAACOUNFACOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTMNBXGI2DMNRQGA> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[rolandsteinmeyer]

Sounds like a good idea. What should the sensor be called?
…

maybe
sensor.battery_sim_dashboard_grid_power
and
sensor.battery_sim_<nameOfSimulatedBattery>_dashboard_battery_power ?

unsure what to to do if there is more than 1 simulated battery. grid power probably has to sum up all of them while battery power can be per battery.

[hif2k1]

Unfortunately I don't think it's possible as far as I'm aware for one battery to be aware of information from the others so it might I don't think I'd be able to have an overall total.

…

On Sat, 13 Dec 2025, 10:27 rolandsteinmeyer, ***@***.***> wrote: *rolandsteinmeyer* left a comment (hif2k1/battery_sim#186) <#186 (comment)> Sounds like a good idea. What should the sensor be called? … <#m_9141616112960927500_> maybe sensor.battery_sim_dashboard_grid_power and sensor.battery_sim_<nameOfSimulatedBattery>_dashboard_battery_power ? unsure what to to do if there is more than 1 simulated battery. grid power probably has to sum up all of them while battery power can be per battery. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#186 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFAIZGKRAP7TBOIMZQOR4HL4BPS2JAVCNFSM6AAAAACOUNFACOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTMNBZGE4TCMBVGE> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[dewi-ny-je]

What should the sensor be called?

Whatever you like, since after creating it you can assign the template sensor to an existing device.

unsure what to to do if there is more than 1 simulated battery. grid power probably has to sum up all of them while battery power can be per battery.

Well technically this component provides simulated batteries, not real batteries. You should probably not add any of them to the Energy dashboard, and use a custom dashboard to evaluate their operation. See my example.

I think the ticket can be closed.

[thomwiggers]

I think that in the same way that the battery_sim integration creates simulated sensors like Simulated sensor.p1 meter energy export tariff 2 it could translate my P1 meter's power metric into a simulated power metric. This could probably be done with a derived sensor, but it would be in keeping with the already-provided simulations.

[dewi-ny-je]

This integration updates infrequently, preferably at 60 seconds interval.
Does it really make sense to provide a power reading which updates once a minute?
Also, while the simulated energy sensors are straightforward and very related to the calculations the integration performs internally, adding simulated power sensors would be a different calculation which the integration does't need at all.

Personally I'm not convinced it brings much benefit to most users.

[dewi-ny-je]

This seems a support request and not an issue. Moving to a discussion.

If no further feedback/contribution is required, please close it @rolandsteinmeyer