Get Solar Energy Management (SEM) v1.4.7 running in your Home Assistant in about 10 minutes.
Complete these before installing SEM:
1. Home Assistant Energy Dashboard configured
Go to Settings > Dashboards > Energy. You must have at least a solar production sensor and a grid sensor set up. SEM reads all sensor configuration from here automatically.
2. HACS installed
SEM is distributed through HACS. If you have not installed HACS, follow the HACS installation guide first.
3. No EV charger? That is fine
EV charger setup is optional. SEM works as a monitoring and battery management system without one.
- Open HACS in the Home Assistant sidebar.
- Go to Integrations.
- Click the 3-dot menu in the top-right corner and select Custom repositories.
- Enter the URL:
https://github.com/traktore-org/sem-communityand set the category to Integration. Click Add. - Search for Solar Energy Management and click Download.
- When prompted, restart Home Assistant: Settings > System > Restart.
What you should see: After restart, "Solar Energy Management" appears as an available integration and HACS shows it as installed.
- Go to Settings > Devices & Services.
- Click + Add Integration and search for Solar Energy Management.
- Select it to open the setup wizard.
The wizard has 3 steps.
SEM displays a summary of the sensors it found in your Energy Dashboard — solar power, grid power, and battery power. Review them to confirm they look correct.
If you want SEM to monitor only and not control any hardware, enable Observer Mode. You can change this later.
Click Submit.
If you have an EV charger, select its sensors here:
| Field | What to select |
|---|---|
| Connected sensor | Binary sensor that shows when the car is plugged in |
| Charging sensor | Binary sensor that shows when charging is active |
| Power sensor | Sensor showing current charging power in watts |
Not sure which entities? Go to Developer Tools > States and type your charger brand name in the filter box.
If you have no EV charger, leave the fields empty and click Submit.
| Setting | Default | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Battery capacity | 10 kWh | Your home battery size |
| Target peak limit | 5 kW | Maximum grid draw before SEM starts shedding load |
| Generate dashboard | ON | Auto-create the SEM dashboard — leave this on |
Click Submit.
What you should see: A success message and the integration listed under Devices & Services.
The SEM dashboard requires these HACS frontend cards. Without them, tabs will appear blank or broken.
Go to HACS > Frontend and install each one:
| Card | Why it is required |
|---|---|
| mushroom | Used for chips, entity cards, and template cards throughout the dashboard |
| card-mod | Applies the glass card styling -- without this, all tabs are blank |
| apexcharts-card | Renders all power and energy charts |
| sankey-chart | Energy flow diagram on the Energy tab |
| fold-entity-row | Collapsible welcome section on the Home tab (optional but recommended) |
After installing all cards, hard-refresh your browser: Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac).
What you should see: The SEM dashboard entry in the sidebar.
Click Solar Energy Management in the Home Assistant sidebar.
The dashboard has 7 tabs:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Home | Live power flow diagram, solar summary, status chips |
| Energy | Daily and historical energy flows and self-consumption |
| Battery | Battery state, charge/discharge charts, SOC trends |
| EV | EV charging session, daily progress, charging history |
| Control | All switches, sliders, and device priority settings |
| Costs | Financial breakdown — savings, feed-in revenue, costs |
| System | Integration health, sensor status, coordinator info |
What you should see: Live power values on the Home tab. The illustrated system diagram shows real-time energy flowing between solar panels, inverter, battery, grid, house, and EV charger with animated spark flow paths. The sun tracks its real position on the arc from sunrise to sunset, with golden energy particles flowing from sun to panels during production. Tap any component to open its HA statistics dialog.
Go to Developer Tools > States and type sem_ in the filter box.
What you should see: 200 or more entities with the sensor.sem_*, switch.sem_*, and number.sem_* prefix — all populated with values, not unavailable.
If sensors show unavailable, check the System tab on the SEM dashboard for diagnostic information.
Once installed, SEM runs without manual intervention:
- Solar surplus appears — EV charging current increases automatically to use it (6–32 A range)
- Clouds roll in — EV charging reduces or pauses, resumes when surplus returns
- Battery reaches priority SOC — surplus is redirected to EV charging
- Evening — solar charging stops; system monitors overnight
- Night charging — opt-in (off by default); when enabled, grid-charges the EV to your daily-target floor
- Smart forecast — if tomorrow is sunny, tonight's grid charging is reduced or skipped
The controls that matter most (v1.6.3 — night_charging and smart_night_charging switches replaced by the per-charger Charge mode selector):
| Entity | Default | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
select.sem_charger_<id>_charge_mode |
Min + Solar |
Per-charger intent: Solar only / Solar + cheapest hours / Min + Solar / Always (max) / Off. The named mode carries the night-charging and tariff-window intent that used to live on separate switches. |
switch.sem_observer_mode |
OFF | Monitor-only, no hardware control |
Everything else is automatic.
SEM supports 15 languages. The integration follows your Home Assistant language setting automatically. Each user sees the dashboard in their own profile language.
For details, see the Dashboard Guide.
The dashboard is blank or shows white tabs
The card-mod HACS card is not installed or not loaded. Install it from HACS > Frontend and hard-refresh your browser (Ctrl+Shift+R).
Some tabs show an error card
A required HACS frontend card from Step 3 is missing. Check each card in the list and install any that are absent.
Sensors show unavailable
SEM reads sensors from your Energy Dashboard. Go to Settings > Dashboards > Energy and confirm your solar and grid sensors are configured and currently reporting values. Then open the SEM System tab and look for any red indicators.
The sidebar entry does not appear after install
Restart Home Assistant again (Settings > System > Restart), then hard-refresh your browser. The sidebar entry is registered on startup.
Energy Dashboard was not configured before installing SEM
Go to Settings > Dashboards > Energy and add your solar and grid sensors. Then go to Settings > Devices & Services > Solar Energy Management, click the 3-dot menu, and select Reconfigure to re-run the setup wizard.
- Setup Guide — detailed configuration for EV charging strategy, tariffs, notifications, and multi-charger setups
- Dashboard Guide — all 7 tabs explained, language support, customization options