Scrape data locally from a an Envoy solar controller
This system uses two components, one called "envoy-scraper" which runs in the same network as the Envoy systems being monitored, and "envoy-receiver" which typically will run on some hosted server somewhere.
Both components are built into a Docker image, and in my environment the scraper is running in my home Kubernetes cluster, while the receiver runs on my Docker host on my colo-based machine.
Display is presented via Grafana, and is not documented here.
The serial number configured for the scraper is stored in the clear, and it transmitted to the receiver to differentiate between individual Envoy systems. Additionally, the microinverter serial numbers are transmitted to the receiver and stored in the database.
The receiver and scraper use a shared secret to authenticate, which will someday be converted to a JWT most likely.
The scraper needs to know two things about the Envoy: its IP address and serial number. From the serial, the "installer password" is generated, and used to access the API to retrieve information from the Envoy. No configuration is changed on the Envoy.
The scraper will gather data once per minute, and upload data if it changes only. It seems that my Envoy only updates data once every five minutes, so this will result in less redundant data sent to the receiver and less redundant data stored in the database.
The scraper only gathers a subset of the available data, such as current and peak output per inverter. The serial numbers are sent to the receiver, so analysis would be possible based on detailed data per inverter over time.
The receiver accepts data from one or more scrapers, and stores the data in an InfluxDB database for Grafana to consume.