System type
Tells the simulator whether your installation can talk to the grid or has to live within its solar + battery budget. The two settings drive completely different action plans.
Using Grid (residential)
A standard residential setup wired into the public electricity grid. Surplus solar can be exported back to the grid for a feed-in tariff; any deficit (load greater than solar + battery) is covered by importing from the grid. Suitable for home, factory, or any site with a metered grid connection.
The simulator’s recommendations centre on cash: when to export for the best feed-in tariff, when to curtail to avoid negative-price hours, and when to drain the battery to charge the EV.
Off-grid (RV / home)
A standalone installation with no grid connection — a caravan / RV, a remote off-grid home, a boat, a portable site office. No exports, no imports. Whatever the panels generate is either consumed directly, stored in the battery, or curtailed (dumped) when the battery is full. When load exceeds available solar + battery, the simulator records a shortfall and the rest of the load goes unmet.
The simulator’s recommendations switch focus accordingly: instead of grid trade-offs, it surfaces how much extra load the daily energy budget could absorb (headroom) or how much the load needs to drop to avoid running the battery flat (shortfall). See the “Action plan” table after running a forecast for the directive sentences.
Closes this tab and returns to the calculator.