Looking for energy monitor suggestions

[Tillsy]

I haven’t done a whole lot with energy usage and automation, but I’ve done a little. For example, HomeSeer knows when my washer and drier are running, based on how much power they are drawing, and will make an announcement when they finish.

Likewise.

My washing machine draws power when it has a delayed wash cycle, whereas my dishwasher draws (next to) nothing. To that end I have the wife turn off the smartswitch after activating a clothes wash cycle - I have set up an event that detects this and will wait it detects a decent amount of solar later in the day before turning the washing machine back on again so the cycle can start. If that never happens it will announce this upon arrival home for awareness and continues waiting until the next day.

I also have a readout on a dashboard in our kitchen showing usage vs solar so that it is immediately obvious if we are using within our self-sufficient means - if it starts pointing toward the red we need to back off power usage. If we start exceeding solar altogether a verbal announcement goes off so we know to back-off whatever it is we turned on.

This all help "educate" the family - for example the wife previously had no concept of how much power the kettle uses and would INSANELY overfill it for a single cup of tea. After getting annoyed that simply turning it on would, early or late in the day when solar generation is not as high, cause an alert to go off she began to take notice of the graph and realised just how much power that was using. Obviously that won't change but she has now learned that boiling 3/4 of a kettle for a single cup of tea isn't efficient and has heavily backed that off.

Likewise my kids have become really efficient at turning things off now because 1) I've got events all over the place automatically turning things off if left on too long and no motion detected (but immediately turns back on if motion detected within a short period thereafter as that must mean someone was put in the dark!) including verbal announcements as such, 2) They have taken a liking to the dashboard graph and get concerned when it points away from the green and have actively taken it upon themselves to turn things off to keep it closer to green than red.

This is all important for me because where I live the average price of power is, brace yourself, 36c per kWH. I get it for 31c which is a pretty sweet deal, but boy it is still shocking so the absolute most we can make of solar the better.

Working on a circuit and script so I can regulate the charge rate of my Tesla so that it uses more of the solar too. Insanely cheap compared to petrol anyway, but by (presently manually) regulating the charge rate/timing can drive 100% free.

I also cut power to things when we are asleep/not home - so that even standby current is eliminated, use LED lighting, automatically dim lights to save more power, etc. Still keen for more savings as our power usage is very high combined with very high rates.

[aimless]

Unfortunately your 9.8 cents/kWh is working against you if you’re just trying to justify this monetarily. That’s a very low cost for electricity. In my case I pay a little over 12 cents/kWh for the first 1000kWh per month and then it’s a bit over 14 cents/kWh for the rest. In California it can be as high as 30 or 40 cents/kWh or even more.

Additionally, adding batteries to the system will almost certainly make it harder to justify the cost. If live in an area with time of use rates then batteries are easier to justify monetarily as they can help keep you from paying the very expensive peak time rates. But at a flat 9.8 cents it’s just not there.

In the end for me it was more than just a cost savings thing. I like the clean energy factor and I needed a backup solution because here in Florida we can have outages for days after hurricanes. So even though I’m not saving a lot of money there were other factors that made it worthwhile for me.

Also of note, Tesla recently lowered their solar prices and they are now coming in thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars less than other vendors, depending on the size of the system you’re looking at. If you haven’t looked at Tesla’s solar pricing lately you might want to check it out.

Yes, we have low energy rates in Texas and I switch providers as frequently as I need to keep the cost/KWH down. Sorry for those in Cali.

Agree, the battery was more so I can unplug from the grid, it's a $12K adder for a $7K battery, but I haven't negotiated... yet.

I am coastal, frequent power losses due to heavy tree infestation on my branch circuit, I have an alternate plan in mind, but for now I survive the blinks, browns, and blown branch fuses. I have asked the currently negotiating solar provider if they can do a "sine wave" installation where I am always running on battery (source --> battery --> load) so that I am filtered..... and switch it back to line when the battery hits bottom.

I was without power for over a week after Hurricane Harvey 3 years ago, same for Hurricane IKE in 2008, but used portable generators run the fridge, etc.

I will definitely shop around before committing, I had previously looked at the Tesla power wall, it is a very slick product. I am also considering a backup generator as I have a 1000 gal LP tank and plenty of acreage to site a gen set, it's just currently a matter of economics - but it's a problem I'm glad to have!

[BrettS]

I read this thread because I was looking for an HS4 integrated energy monitor that I can use to trigger load control by shutting down things like the pool or other large electric appliances to avoid peaking.

However I have been looking into solar panels for over three years and have not decided the economics are there to pull the trigger yet. My average KWH usage ranges from 1100 KWH/month in winter to 2700 KWH/month in summer and I am on a fixed rate plan costing an average of 9.8 cents/KWH. How did you guys justify the switch to solar as the best pricing I see for solar is closer to 14 cents/KWH for a 18 KW system (2 SolarEdge inverters and appropriate number of panels plus a 10 KWH LG Chem RESU10H battery) and closer to a 25 year break even - I cannot get the numbers to justify the purchase.

Unfortunately your 9.8 cents/kWh is working against you if you’re just trying to justify this monetarily. That’s a very low cost for electricity. In my case I pay a little over 12 cents/kWh for the first 1000kWh per month and then it’s a bit over 14 cents/kWh for the rest. In California it can be as high as 30 or 40 cents/kWh or even more.

Additionally, adding batteries to the system will almost certainly make it harder to justify the cost. If live in an area with time of use rates then batteries are easier to justify monetarily as they can help keep you from paying the very expensive peak time rates. But at a flat 9.8 cents it’s just not there.

In the end for me it was more than just a cost savings thing. I like the clean energy factor and I needed a backup solution because here in Florida we can have outages for days after hurricanes. So even though I’m not saving a lot of money there were other factors that made it worthwhile for me.

Also of note, Tesla recently lowered their solar prices and they are now coming in thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars less than other vendors, depending on the size of the system you’re looking at. If you haven’t looked at Tesla’s solar pricing lately you might want to check it out.

[aimless]

I read this thread because I was looking for an HS4 integrated energy monitor that I can use to trigger load control by shutting down things like the pool or other large electric appliances to avoid peaking.

However I have been looking into solar panels for over three years and have not decided the economics are there to pull the trigger yet. My average KWH usage ranges from 1100 KWH/month in winter to 2700 KWH/month in summer and I am on a fixed rate plan costing an average of 9.8 cents/KWH. How did you guys justify the switch to solar as the best pricing I see for solar is closer to 14 cents/KWH for a 18 KW system (2 SolarEdge inverters and appropriate number of panels plus a 10 KWH LG Chem RESU10H battery) and closer to a 25 year break even - I cannot get the numbers to justify the purchase.

[mr.Magoo]

mr.Magoo Have you installed CTs on each of those devices/circuits?

Yes, I use the smaller 50A CT's on all the individual channels and 100A on the main.
I chose the solid core CT's (over split) simply because I don't have that much room in my panel, placed the IotaWatt unit in a separate enclosure right next to the panel.

My house is an older house (1929) and the electrical have undergone a lot of changes over the years.
Ideally I'd like to have a lot more channels (just because you can) but I had to limit myself due to how things are laid out.
What's called "house" in my measurements is the really old 6-amp screw-in-fuse type sub-panel that covers most of the outlets and lights, there's simply no room in that panel (or even easily accessible) to add CT's so I had to do that one as a group.
The master bath is monitored mainly in case "someone" forgets their hair products plugged in, while it has it's own sub-panel (bathroonm remodel not too long ago with higher use items such as heated floors and towel warmer) I didn't see a need to split it up further (at this time anyway).

Range and Fridge is convenient, washer / dryer for monitoring / announcements, server was out of curiosity (it's all of my IT/automation/surveillance)

[logbuilder]

mr.Magoo Thanks for sharing. Never heard of this. I see you are showing usage for some of your bigger loads such as range, washer, and bath. Have you installed CTs on each of those devices/circuits?

In general, looking at the website, this looks like a very viable solution. The emoncms dashboard examples are really nice. I need to spend some time understanding emoncms.

[mr.Magoo]

Yet another alternative is IotaWatt https://iotawatt.com/

I keep saying it's the most boring piece of home automation I've ever bought as I have not touched it in over a year, it just works...

Fairly "cheap" by comparison to some of the alternatives (especially now since they're having a sale) and with that it's easier (more palatable?) if you'd like to do a distributed installation due to the use of a lot of panels.

I'm logging to InfluxDB and use Grafana for presentation.

[logbuilder]

Previously I mentioned the eGauge monitor as being what I use and like. eGauge published a short youtube video describing their 3 different models. Thought someone might be interested. Here is the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dApk8S-VZoI

[daniel.walsh]

Really nice installation!

The Open Energy Monitor looks like an interesting project ... Open Source built on Rasberry PI. Has solar, heat pump and EV so can do it all and has open API to integrate with HS.

https://openenergymonitor.org/

I have the Efergy energy monitor for about a year now and it's not bad - was pretty cheap. Use it to monitor the load on my hot tub and a couple of other energy hogs in the house - No solar production going on. Their app isn't good but I was able to use another app that interacts with their APIs. Haven't yet figured out how to bring it into my hub.

Agreed that the Sense seems to be a little hit and miss in trying to identify appliance based on their load. All that "AI" magic when in reality it seems to struggle identifying devices for months. SE have released a new competitor to sense, Wiser - Same machine learning stuff but again same problem of not being able to integrate into HS

Few other options here like Aeotec could definitely work.

[racerfern]

BrettS have you tried the SolarEdge PI yet or are you going a different route? I use the SolarEdge PI for HS4 and it's great.

[logbuilder]

Really nice looking install! Please keep us up to date with your results. Have fun.

[BrettS]

Yeah, it is a lot, but I use a lot of power tbh. With the AC and my fish tank and the electric car I can do as much as 2500 or 3000kWh a month during the summer.

The powerwalls are installed. Here are the brackets that they used to mount them against the wall:



They ran the electrical connections through wall behind the powerwalls (through the hole at the top of each bracket) so there was no visible conduit or anything in the garage.

The conduit is visible on the other side of that wall, though.

[logbuilder]

Really nice looking. Looks like they did great work. 15kw seems like a lot to me. But you are in FL so your AC probably uses a lot. Up here, residential usually doesn't have AC. Were the Powerwalls in the above picture installed?

ETA: that pool looks inviting

[BrettS]

The install is finished now. Here are a few pics of the finished work:







There are 48 315W panels in total on three sides of the house (none on the roof that’s predominantly north facing) for a total of 15.12kW.

They turned it on for a short time this afternoon to test everything. It was partly cloudy this afternoon, so the solar output was bouncing around a bit as the clouds went overhead, but I saw it get up to 12.9kW at one point while it was in direct sunlight, so that seems pretty good to me.

At least I don’t have to worry about the snow here

[logbuilder]

Wow! Thanks for the pics From what I can tell you have panels on 3 sides of your roof. Somewhere around 40 panels when done? That should put you well over 10kw. Nice system!

It really is nice when you have a system that large that meets all your consumption needs. At the end of the year knowing you didn't directly pay for any house power and never bought any gas for a car. I can take a 100 mile day trip and it literally costs me nothing. Quite liberating. My system will have paid for itself in another 5 years and I should have another 20 years of free power. I'm on a well with a 240v pump so I get no water bill. Septic tank so no sewer bill. My heat is half propane which I buy once a year. I have 1000 gals of storage in 2 tanks that I own so I can shop for the best price every year. You'd be amazed at the spread from one supplier to the next. Most years I will use about 700 gals @ about $1.50/gal. When you have a solar system that fully meets your consumption needs, you tend not to worry with saving power. Phantom loads - why bother. As long as I know total production and consumption, that's all I really need. If either jumps or falls, I should be able to identify why pretty quickly. Those spikes you see in the middle of the night in the charts I posted are my electric water heater. It is really old and I'm sure there are way more efficient ones that would have other advantages too. The heat pump ones look pretty neat. However, since I don't buy any power, an inefficient appliance really doesn't matter. I'll wait till it fails and then replace with a moderately efficient one. Half the heat is wood based. That's an ongoing chore of processing firewood. We have a 5 acre woodlot that provides me all the wood I have the energy to cut.

My lack of needing to be efficient may be unique to WA state. Since I get billed for net usage and paid for gross production, there is no incentive to save as long as I produce above what I use. FL may be quite different. How do you get compensated for what you put back into the grid?

I remember one thing that I was paranoid about when I got the solar was keeping the panels clean so they would produce top power. Turns out that was wasted worry. My panels are ground mounted so I can get to them easily but they never look dirty and production has remained constant. The rain cleans them just fine. But as you can see below, sometimes they produce nothing. Batteries would be nice.