Get Solar Energy Management (SEM) running in your Home Assistant in about 10 minutes.
Complete these before installing SEM:
1. Home Assistant Energy Dashboard configured (recommended)
Since 2.1 this is no longer required: if the Energy Dashboard is empty, SEM asks the energy integrations you run what they create and offers those sensors for you to confirm.
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.
- Search for Solar Energy Management (SEM is in the default HACS store — no custom repository needed) 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 2 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.
| Setting | Default | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Battery capacity | 10 kWh | Your home battery size |
| Generate dashboard | ON | Auto-create the SEM dashboard — leave this on |
Click Submit. SEM starts at a 5 kW target peak limit with load shedding off; tune the limit later from the Control tab's slider (up to 80 kW, or Uncapped) and enable shedding on the Configuration tab — see Load Management Settings.
EV charger configuration is available after install via the Configuration tab or Settings > Devices & Services > Solar Energy Management > Configure.
What you should see: A success message and the integration listed under Devices & Services.
No extra HACS frontend cards are required — every card the SEM dashboard uses is bundled with the integration or native Home Assistant.
Optional (auto-detected if installed via HACS > Frontend):
| Card | What it adds |
|---|---|
| sankey-chart | A richer SEM-entity energy-flow sankey on the Energy tab (native energy-sankey is used otherwise) |
| k-flow-card | An animated flow visualization as an alternative Home-tab diagram (opt-in) |
After updating SEM or installing an optional card, 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 8 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 |
| Configuration | Guided access to every SEM setting, with per-row help and docs links |
| 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. With a charger in Solar + battery, the home battery keeps the car going after sunset — down to the level the house needs for the night, no further
- 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 battery's overnight floor is measured (2.1) — SEM learns what your house uses at night and spends only what tonight can spare
- The pack fills across the day (2.1) — charge pacing follows the forecast so the battery lands full at sunset, not by 11:30
- The 15-minute peak is guarded (2.1) — on a demand tariff SEM keeps every slot's average under your limit, across all devices
The controls that matter most:
| Entity | Default | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
select.sem_charger_<id>_charge_mode |
Min + Solar |
Per-charger charging mode: Solar only / Solar + battery (surplus plus the home battery, down to the level the house still needs overnight) / Solar + cheapest hours / Min + Solar (grid minimum 6A + surplus) / Always max / Off (hands-off — SEM sends nothing). Pick based on your needs; see Charging Modes in the Setup Guide. |
number.sem_battery_assist_min_surplus |
1200 W | Solar Gate: minimum real solar surplus to enable battery assist for the EV. Set to 0 W to allow battery support everywhere (previous behaviour). Prevents battery drain into the car at night. |
switch.sem_observer_mode |
ON (new installs) | Monitor-only — turn it OFF to let SEM control hardware |
Everything else is automatic.
SEM supports 16 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
Usually a stale browser/service-worker cache after an update — hard-refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R), or clear the Companion app's frontend cache. No HACS card is required since v1.7.5.
Some tabs show an error card
If the error names a sem-* element, SEM's card bundle didn't register — restart Home Assistant and hard-refresh. If it names another custom card, you removed an optional card the dashboard was generated with — re-run the generate dashboard action to regenerate with fallbacks.
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 8 tabs explained, language support, customization options