PV Disaggregated Insights

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.
Eliq estimates this using:

• A clear-sky production model
• Location-specific weather data
• PV system parameters inferred from smart meter data

Consumption (Estimated via ML)

Total electricity used by the home, reconstructed from:

• Import
• Export
• Estimated Production

Consumption insights such as forecasting and energy usage categories become possible even without direct consumption measurements.

4. When Should Utilities Use PV Disaggregation?

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.

5. How PV Disaggregation Works (Technical Overview)

The system consists of two ML-driven components:

5.1 PV Parameter Estimation

Using smart meter Import and Export data, Eliq estimates key attributes of the PV installation:

• Azimuth
• Tilt
• System size
• Efficiency
• Temperature coefficient

A minimum of 7 days of Import/Export data (hourly or better) is required.
Parameters continue improving over time as new data arrives.

5.2 Continuous Disaggregation

Every time a day of data is completed, Eliq’s engine:

1. Computes ideal solar generation using PV parameters
2. Applies weather-based adjustments using a Weather ML model
3. Estimates Production
4. Derives Consumption
5. Stores results for API access

This allows apps to always present the full set of PV data streams.

6. Weather ML Model & Localisation

Weather conditions vary significantly by geography. To maximize accuracy, Eliq trains localized weather models whenever ground truth production data is available.

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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"
  }

Visit the Getting Started documentation for more details on getting started using the Eliq Platform

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