Grid Flow and Battery Flow charts

What these widgets are for

Grid Flow and Battery Flow are two simple donut charts that focus on a single energy balance each:

• Grid Flow — how much energy came from the grid (import) versus how much was sent to the grid (export) over a chosen period.
• Battery Flow — how much energy was charged into the battery versus how much was discharged out over a chosen period.

Both are at-a-glance "balance" widgets: one slice per direction, with the period total under the chart. Use Grid Flow to answer "are we a net consumer or net producer this month?" and Battery Flow to answer "how busy is the battery — is it cycling, or just sitting?".

For a fuller breakdown of where the load's energy came from, use the Load Analysis chart (the same family, with more sources).

Companion guides

• Dashboard overview — how to add, move, resize, and remove widgets.
• Load Analysis chart — the parent of these two: same donut style, more contributors.
• Energy Production & Consumption chart — the bar-chart view of the same underlying totals over time.

Where to find them

Open the Dashboard, click the pencil icon to enter edit mode, then click Add New Widget. Search the picker for Grid Flow Chart or Battery Flow Chart and click Add Widget. Each chart drops onto your dashboard at 3 × 3.

You can add both side by side — together they tell the story of how the site moved energy in and out of its two "buffers" (grid and battery).

The chart at a glance

Each chart shows:

• A donut with one slice per direction. Grid Flow has Grid Import and Grid Export. Battery Flow has Battery Charge and Battery Discharge.
• Labels outside each slice with the source name and its energy total for the period (in Wh / kWh / MWh).
• A subtitle under the chart showing the active period — Daily, Month, or Year.
• A central icon identifying which chart you're looking at (a grid icon or a battery icon).
• Period buttons to switch between Daily, Monthly, and Yearly views.
• A date picker to choose the specific day, month, or year to summarise.

Choosing what to show

Open the gear icon. The settings dialog has the same toggles as the Load Analysis chart, but each Flow chart comes preconfigured for its purpose:

• Grid Flow defaults — Grid Import and Grid Export on; everything else off.
• Battery Flow defaults — Storage Charge and Storage Discharge on; everything else off.

You can tick additional contributors if you want a richer breakdown (for example adding PV to a Grid Flow chart to see grid in/out alongside solar) — but the standard pair-of-slices view is what these widgets are designed for and what reads best at 3 × 3.

Picking a period

The three period buttons control how the slices are computed:

• Daily — the import / export or charge / discharge totals for one chosen day.
• Monthly — the totals across one chosen month.
• Yearly — the totals across one chosen year.

Pick a period, pick a date in the picker, and the chart redraws.

Reading the donut

• Each slice shows its name and energy total as a label outside the ring.
• Hover a slice for a slightly larger label with the same numbers.
• The relative size of slices is the story. Two roughly equal Grid Flow slices mean a fairly self-balancing site (about as much going in as out). A donut almost entirely Grid Import means the site leans on the grid; almost entirely Grid Export means it's a net producer.
• A missing slice means that direction was zero (or below a small floor) for the period — e.g. no battery activity at all, or no grid feed-in.

Who can do what

• Any signed-in user can add the chart, switch periods, change dates, toggle which slices appear, and read the donut. The chart is read-only — it never sends a command back to a device.

Common issues

• One slice is missing or nearly invisible. The total for that direction was zero or near-zero for the period. Genuine — not a bug. Examples: a fully off-grid site won't have a Grid Import slice on most days; a battery that wasn't cycling won't have a Charge slice.
• The two Battery slices don't match exactly. They aren't supposed to — the difference is the battery's round-trip loss for the period. A larger gap over time can hint at battery degradation; cross-check with the Energy Production & Consumption chart's Storage Charge vs Storage Discharge totals.
• Grid Export is unexpectedly large. Either the site is generating well over its own needs and feeding back, or a wiring / polarity issue is making the meter read the wrong direction. Cross-check with Power Analytics at a known time.
• The Grid Flow shows Grid Import but the Power Flow widget shows the grid icon at zero. The Flow charts show energy totals (kWh over a period); the Power Flow widget shows power right now. The two are looking at different timescales.

Tips and gotchas

• Yearly is for annual reporting. Set the period to Yearly and the slices read as the year's import / export or charge / discharge totals — exactly the numbers you want in a summary.
• Pair with Load Analysis. Three donuts in a row — Load Analysis, Grid Flow, Battery Flow — give a compact, complete picture of how the site moved energy through itself for the period.
• A "balanced" Battery Flow is healthy. Big batteries cycle every day; a Battery Flow chart with two roughly equal slices says the battery is being used well. A donut with one tiny slice and one large one says the battery is mostly used in one direction (perhaps because of how the system is configured).
• The widgets refresh with the dashboard. When Auto Update is on in your View Settings, these charts re-fetch their data on every refresh.