PV Disaggregation

Introduction

As more homes install Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, utilities face a new challenge: delivering accurate, engaging PV insights to customers despite limited data access.
Most utilities receive only Import and Export data from the smart meter, while Production and Consumption data remain locked behind inverter systems that require dozens of vendor-specific integrations.

Eliq’s PV Disaggregation solves this problem using machine learning to reconstruct missing PV data. With only Import, Export, and weather data, Eliq estimates the full energy flow of a PV-equipped home, unlocking complete PV insights at scale, with no inverter integrations required.

This makes it possible for utilities to deliver a high-quality PV digital experience to every PV-equipped customer.

What Eliq Provides Through PV Disaggregation

Eliq’s PV Disaggregation generates:

• Production (estimated)
• Consumption (estimated)
• Import (actual smart meter data)
• Export (actual smart meter data)

All four streams can then be used to:

• Build rich PV experiences
• Show daily and monthly energy flows
• Calculate self-consumption and self-sufficiency
• Improve engagement for PV customers
• Reduce support inquiries
• Enable accurate forecasting and energy coaching
• Benchmark PV customers in Similar Homes or segmentation features

This gives utilities a unified way to deliver PV insights across all customers—regardless of their inverter brand.

Data Streams Explained

Import

Electricity purchased from the grid. Always available from the smart meter.

Export

Electricity sold back to the grid. Also available from the smart meter.

Production (Estimated via ML)

Electricity generated by the PV system, estimated by Eliq from import and export data and local weather.

Consumption (Estimated via ML)

Total electricity used by the home, reconstructed from:

• Import
• Export
• Estimated Production

Consumption-based insights such as forecasting and energy advice become possible even without direct consumption measurements. Energy Usage Categories also work for homes with solar, using the consumption that PV Disaggregation estimates.

When to use it

PV Disaggregation is ideal when:

• The utility has only Import and Export data (the most common case)
• The utility wants to provide PV insights without third-party integrations
• Utility support teams want to reduce inbound PV-related questions
• The utility aims to engage PV customers with advanced energy analytics
• The utility wants consistent insights across its full PV customer base

Without disaggregation, utilities cannot deliver:

• Consumption insights
• Production insights
• Forecasts
• Energy advice
• PV performance summaries

Eliq’s ML engine unlocks these capabilities instantly.

How it works

Eliq estimates the characteristics of each solar installation from its import and export data, combines them with local weather, and recalculates production and consumption every time a new day of data arrives. The estimates improve as more data comes in. The first results need at least 7 days of hourly import and export data.

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Quick guide – How to implement PV Disaggregated Insights in an app

Pre-requisites

Offering Insights to consumers who have a PV equipped home is something that needs to be set up by Eliq, please contact us for more details on how to do this.

Adding data

Data can be added through the Eliq Data Management API. All locations must fulfill the Data Requirements (see above).

App Dynamics

Apps can determine whether or not to present PV Disaggregation Data Streams in an app dynamically, by utilizing the “Location Metadata” in the Insights API Endpoint GET Location . Information to help determine whether or not a Location has PV data and if the source of the data is based on the Eliq PV Disaggregation feature can be determined in the response. Example below.

"production":
  {
    "resolution": "hour",
    "data_from": "2020-01-01T00:00:00",
    "data_to": "2021-01-01T00:00:00",
    "source": "pv_disagg"  
  },
"consumption":
  {
    "resolution": "hour",
    "data_from": "2020-01-01T00:00:00",
    "data_to": "2021-01-01T00:00:00",
    "source": "pv_disagg"
  }

API Endpoints

Use Get Location to determine which data is available and to build app dynamics. The source parameter determines if PV disaggregated data exists or not as well as whether or not Import and Export Data exists.

Use Get Location Production to fetch Disaggregated Production Data for a location with pv_disagg.

Use Get Location Consumption to fetch Disaggregated Consumption Data for a location with pv_disagg.

Use Get Location Import to fetch Import Data for a location with a PV system.

Use Get Location Export to fetch Export Data for a location with a PV system.

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Use Cases

Show an overview of Import/Export data on a Home Screen in an app

With the import/export summary card in the home screen users will get a quick summary of the last day and ongoing months data streams. If a location has Import/Export price formulas, you could show price as well.

Import/Export & Consumption/Production in consumption graph

Example of how to visualize import/export data in graphs with different resolutions

Example how you can toggle between import/export and consumption/production within graphs

Import/Export summary