Pentair IntelliFlo VSF Recommendations

[Flipsonic]

Just installed yesterday as my 1 HP WhisperFlo finally died after 14 years. I'm new to the VSF pump but it doesn't seem so complicated after a few hours of playing with it yesterday. I live in Northern California so we get get 5 to 6 months of full sun everyday in late spring and summer months. I have a 15k gallon in ground gunite pool. I use liquid chlorine for sanitation. It doesn't get much traffic anymore since my kids are older now and have other interests. But we do use it during big gatherings a few times in the summer and a few days here and there with my family. There are no trees close to the pool so there isn't much debris that falls in it. Pool pump is located about 40' away from the pool at the same elevation. I do have a solar heater located on the 2nd floor rooftop and after playing with RPM settings yesterday, I found the sweet spot to work with the solar heater at 2800 RPM (1137 watts) no bubbles. I plan to run it at this setting during summer months to heat up the pool.

Now, if you have a better suggestion on how I can minimize my electricity bill while using the solar heater, please suggest. As for non swimming season months, I plan to set the pump at minimum. I'm thinking of running it at night for 10 hours. Maybe even 12 hours. To set to minimum RPM for this, should I just look at the skimmer to make sure it is turning? If there is a better way to test this, please suggest.

P.S. I had the Polaris PB4SQ booster pump installed as well as the old one died years ago. It is connected to a mechanical timer and I'm afraid to use this setup in case there is power outage. In the past, the mechanical timer turned on at unscheduled time due to the power outage and I was out of town. The booster pump ran with the pool pump off. It seems the only way to protect the booster pump is install a timer that will keep the time accurate in case of power outage. Any other ideas?

[Teapot]

What is the pressure gauge reading when the solar is on and when off?
You won't be running the solar in the evening so have you figured out a setting for that, I am looking for a comparisson between the two.
A flow meter is a really good idea with a variable speed pump.

You can't be that conerned about energy use if you have a booster pump cleaner, Have you tried manual cleaning, much quicker, you won't miss bits and it saves money.

Now I could go on about cartridge filters, what micron are yours? as the value of filtration is removing the finest particles per hour of filter run. If the cartridge is bigger than 5 microns you are really only straining out the large stuff so a short filtration run is probably all you need.

[Flipsonic]

Around 25 PSI when solar heater is on and around 10 to 15 PSI when not on. I wasn't going to run the pump in the evening if I'm filtering during the day with the solar on. It's sunny here everyday during summer. But during off season, I plan to run it in the evening. So for evening setting, how do I determine the lowest RPM and my pool water is still moving? I guess I can just set it at 1000 RPM for 10 to 12 hours. New 3/4 HP booster pump has just been installed and it is energy efficient (Polaris PB4SQ). So forget manual cleaning.

[Flipsonic]

One additional question - after programming the Schedules, I couldn't see the power draw on the display. I could see PSI instead. I looked through the manual and couldn't find how to make it show the power draw. I could see it when I was running the pump on manual mode. Does anyone know how to make the power draw show up?

[Flipsonic]

I figured it out. Just click on the right arrow key until it says watts.