Is "Grid Import" a positive or negative value?

Hi,
Very new to this Energy Management field so please excuse me if this is a silly question.
Firstly, I appreciate that this is basically a "point of view" issue. If I am sitting in my armchair, watching my energy meter count up as my battery is charged, I would perceive that I had gained energy. A gain from my point of view is positive.
So why does the Portal Energy Graph show "Grid Import" as a negative value!
Regards, Martin
PS - I'd like to paste an image hear but I can't find a way?

mprowe It is a point of view - in the industry I work in, a supply to a load would usually be positive. So an incoming supply from the grid +ve - but that same supply to the incomer to a switch board would be negative - and all the outgoing ways from that board would be positive. If you added up all that consumption you would end up with the boards load - the grid supply and incoming supply offsetting each other - any difference being un-metered loads.
But in the case of the portal, the grid supply is displayed as a negative, battery charging negative, discharging positive. And load itself positive - so with no solar or battery, the sum of the grid supply and the load will be zero as they would perfectly match.

As for pasting an image - you can't directly (Seems to be a major flaw of the forum software - but minor compared to other issues currently).

If you use the link https://imgbb.com/ and upload your screen shot to that and then use the BBCode full linked option to paste on here.

For example:
[url=https://ibb.co/MZgYBXz][img]https://i.ibb.co/TYwVWCQ/Screenshot-2022-08-18-204931.png[/img][/url]
Results in:

mprowe PS - I'd like to paste an image hear but I can't find a way?

You can use any web site from where you can share an image such as this one; just copy BB code full to embed the image.

By convention, energy consumed is negative, energy produced is positive. Grid import is negative, export positive. Battery charge is negative, discharge is positive.

Tim Not in the metering industry its not! Power to a load is positive, power from a generator (For example negative)

Tim But I agree that what you say makes a lot more sense in this application!

anglefire I don't dispute your experience and knowledge but I think the OP was looking for some clarification as to how to interpret the portal numbers and that's what I tried to do.

WRT metering per se (or at least domestic smart meters), import and export are different registers, both incrementing as they integrate, so both positive. I guess it depends on where the metering is as I don't suppose a power station would expect to display MW generated as a negative value?

Tim I don't dispute your experience and knowledge but I think the OP was looking for some clarification as to how to interpret the portal numbers and that's what I tried to do.

I did that in my first post and as he did also mention perspective, I tried to explain. Maybe badly. 😉

Tim By convention, energy consumed is negative, energy produced is positive.

That's the nugget I'll take away from this thread.
Thank you all very much, Martin