Home Electric Useage Monitors

[arnolddeleon]

Looks like I didn't put my info here before.

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I'd like to get a home energy monitoring system so I can separate the solar generation and EVSE usage from the rest of the house and do more what-if calculations - like what if I didn't have solar? How much would my bill go up with EV charging?

...

You can look at eMonitor from PowerHouse Dynamics (http://www.powerhousedynamics.com/residential-energy-efficiency/). I have their first generation system. It allows you set up per circuit monitoring. If you download their app there is "trial" mode so it in action. I don't know if they a trial mode for the website which gives more detail than the app.

I have no affiliation with them except as a customer.

arnold

 

[miimura]

Looks like I didn't put my info here before.
...
I'd like to get a home energy monitoring system so I can separate the solar generation and EVSE usage from the rest of the house and do more what-if calculations - like what if I didn't have solar? How much would my bill go up with EV charging?
...

You can look at eMonitor from PowerHouse Dynamics (http://www.powerhousedynamics.com/residential-energy-efficiency/). I have their first generation system. It allows you set up per circuit monitoring. If you download their app there is "trial" mode so it in action. I don't know if they a trial mode for the website which gives more detail than the app.

I have no affiliation with them except as a customer.

arnold

That's a nice system. Per-circuit monitoring and in-the-panel wireless capability to the gateway looks good. It's pricey though. Hardware cost for my house would be $800-$1,000 depending on the fraction of circuits under individual monitoring because I would need a second base unit for the sub-panel. The full data presentation features also require 2 year service contract at net $10/mo.

 

[arnolddeleon]

When I purchased about 3 years ago I spent about $1,500 on 44 circuit monitoring with 5 years of service included. I couldn't find anything close to the price per circuit. I think they're monthly service is a little high but I've got another 2 years before I have deal with it. They provide you access to the raw data so you can always roll your own. In the past I've rolled my own data collection setup so I know what that hassle is like.

arnold

 

[Dsinned]

There are several of these home energy monitoring systems on the market and they all do pretty much the same things. Just to name the ones I am familiar with, heard of, or personally tried out, in the price range of around $200 for a basic starter kit:

1. TED 5000
2. Current Cost/PowerSaver ENVIR
3. Efergy Hub
4. OWL
5. Rain Forest Eagle (works wirelessly with certain Smart Meters, controlled by your utility co.)

There are several other similar products from "no name" (Asian?) companies . . . let the buyer beware! Several of these products are being manufactured and sold abroad actually; TED is the only one most widely known for being sold in the U.S.

Some of these that are more expensive have multiple channel support, but the cheaper ones don't. Only one or two of these provide true power measurements (power factor corrected), while most do not, so there accuracy is certainly questionable. My experience with these product's software and technical support is not very good. Sometimes I get no response (to an email) at all. These all seem to be very small companies where the owner is doing everything his or herself.

 

[arnolddeleon]

Yes, plenty of home energy monitoring systems that give you the whole house and possibly a few other circuits. If you want to monitor a lot of circuits (like almost all the circuits) and deal with net energy flow (have PV) the number vendors shrinks dramatically.

arnold

 

[waidy]

Yes, plenty of home energy monitoring systems that give you the whole house and possibly a few other circuits. If you want to monitor a lot of circuits (like almost all the circuits) and deal with net energy flow (have PV) the number vendors shrinks dramatically.
arnold

I have 1 main panel and 8 sub-panels, total of 138 breakers. I don't think I can find any tool that could monitor all my breakers :-(

 

[Dsinned]

Has anyone heard of or tried the HEM system called "Bidgley"? It supposedly characterizes each of your major appliances as an individual electric load by simply "learning" how much power they draw and when. Eventually, it can identify these by their somewhat unique power consumption "signature" within a whole house energy monitoring system.

 

[yblaser]

Has anyone heard of or tried the HEM system called "Bidgley"? It supposedly characterizes each of your major appliances as an individual electric load by simply "learning" how much power they draw and when. Eventually, it can identify these by their somewhat unique power consumption "signature" within a whole house energy monitoring system.

It doesn't work

I've used them for maybe a year. I think they used to be called enersave. Regardless my energy report consists of: Always on, Refrigeration, Heating, and Other. I don't have any electrical hearing and Other is about 2/3 of my usage.

 

[Dsinned]

Thanks. That's what I thought. Bidgley just can't possibly be THAT "intelligent" with only one mains sensor feeding back consumption data for the whole house.

I currently have a 10 channel, separately sensorized 240/120V system based on a monitoring device known as the "ENVIR". It works okay, although the power consumption accuracy is not so great (because the CT sensors can only measure "apparent" power, not true power). The OEM supplier advertises "net" energy monitoring support for a residential PV generator, but this is blatantly untrue. Their web based hosting software, called "Enerati", knows how to measure consumption load circuits (or the whole house as a load on the mains), but does not know how to be combined (arithmetically) with a PV generator circuit. The latter must be monitored in a separately dedicated subsystem configuration, or if combined in a whole house configuration, it must also be treated as a consumption load. You can't directly determine net energy consumption or surplus in this type of configuration. I've complained about this weakness in the software several times, but the S/W developer just keeps blowing me off.

 

[miimura]

At least TED 5000 advertises generation as a standard feature. The only apparent advantage to Bidgely is that it gets the data directly from the meter and is approved by PG&E. I was thinking about putting together a system with TED 5000 and Bidgely. The TED 5000 says it only works on main panels up to 200 Amp, so I am thinking about using the Bidgely Eagle gateway, three TED 5000 CTs and mControl to tie everything together. It's kind of odd to me that mControl support suggested the Bidgely Eagle gateway over their own mBee product, but the Eagle is already approved by PG&E. The three TED monitored circuits would be the EVSE, Solar, and the primary sub-panel.

I'm a little ignorant about "apparent" power. I just read the AC Power page on wikipedia and it's still not clear to me what power the electric meter is measuring. The other weakness I've seen is that some systems only measure current and have to assume the voltage. That sound inherently problematic to me.

Anyway, I have two primary motivations to get energy monitoring. First is that Enphase discards intraday solar generation data after 7 days. This makes it impossible to back out solar generation and calculate what TOU rates would be without the solar system. The alternative is to find a solution that makes use of API access to Enlighten or roll my own solution. Second is that I want to be able to measure and total the energy delivered by my EVSE. This will allow me to accurately calculate the cost to operate my RAV4 EV.

This is getting way off in the weeds for a thread titled "Member Introduction". Perhaps we should start a separate thread for Home Energy Monitoring.

 

[liuping]

First is that Enphase discards intraday solar generation data after 7 days.

I noticed that the new "preview" site shows hourly data back to at least last October (when My system came on line), so Enphase is storing the data. I did not see a way to download it yet, but it's all there...

https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/pv/public_systems/kzWA123350

 

[miimura]

First is that Enphase discards intraday solar generation data after 7 days.

I noticed that the new "preview" site shows hourly data back to at least last October (when My system came on line), so Enphase is storing the data. I did not see a way to download it yet, but it's all there...

https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/pv/public_systems/kzWA123350

You're right. You can now plot any 7 day period with the Custom Date Range, so the data is clearly there. Now, how do I do something useful with it....

 

[Dsinned]

At least TED 5000 advertises generation as a standard feature. The only apparent advantage to Bidgely is that it gets the data directly from the meter and is approved by PG&E. I was thinking about putting together a system with TED 5000 and Bidgely. The TED 5000 says it only works on main panels up to 200 Amp, so I am thinking about using the Bidgely Eagle gateway, three TED 5000 CTs and mControl to tie everything together. It's kind of odd to me that mControl support suggested the Bidgely Eagle gateway over their own mBee product, but the Eagle is already approved by PG&E. The three TED monitored circuits would be the EVSE, Solar, and the primary sub-panel.

I'm a little ignorant about "apparent" power. I just read the AC Power page on wikipedia and it's still not clear to me what power the electric meter is measuring. The other weakness I've seen is that some systems only measure current and have to assume the voltage. That sound inherently problematic to me.

Anyway, I have two primary motivations to get energy monitoring. First is that Enphase discards intraday solar generation data after 7 days. This makes it impossible to back out solar generation and calculate what TOU rates would be without the solar system. The alternative is to find a solution that makes use of API access to Enlighten or roll my own solution. Second is that I want to be able to measure and total the energy delivered by my EVSE. This will allow me to accurately calculate the cost to operate my RAV4 EV.

This is getting way off in the weeds for a thread titled "Member Introduction". Perhaps we should start a separate thread for Home Energy Monitoring.

A utility meter should be measuring and recording true power, not apparent power. However, there is some very small amount of housekeeping electricity consumed by the meter itself. I do not know if this is excluded from the measurements sent to the utility company; probably not since it would only be such an insignificant amount. The only HEM device I know of that measures true power is made by a British company, Efergy, and is called their "True Power" Display Monitor. It cost $145. It has the usual pair of clamp on CTs, plus it has a voltage sensor, all of which are necessary inputs to detect the phase angle between current and voltage of the AC load circuit. This device uses these inputs to calculate the power factor as a multiplier to the VAR (Volt Amps Reactive) measurements to "correct" the displayed power reading.

The Eagle Gateway (made by a Canadian company called Rain Forest) listed on PG&E's website as an "approved" Zigbee home energy networking device, also apparently supported by Bidgely's cloud web server, is currently NOT supported by PG&E "if" you are a solar energy residential ratepayer. Unfortunately, I was just recently informed of this by PG&E when I tried to register the Eagle I just got, and basically told to stay subscribed to PG&E associated online newsletter and/or related email notifications for any change in status.

Btw, for those interested, there is a really nice new iPhone/iPad app just released called "Enphase Solar Array Monitor". It isn't free, but very powerful as mobile PV monitoring apps go. Imho, it even has certain features that are superior to the Enlighten monitoring system itself.

 

[yblaser]

The TED 5000 measures real power.

 

[miimura]

The TED 5000 measures real power.

I thought this was the case since it has the CTs and it is connected to a breaker in the panel. I guess one breaker is sufficient because our split phase power is inherently 180 degrees apart on L1 and L2.

 

[yblaser]

I thought this was the case since it has the CTs and it is connected to a breaker in the panel. I guess one breaker is sufficient because our split phase power is inherently 180 degrees apart on L1 and L2.

I have mine hooked up to both phases although as you say it can work with the voltage monitor hooked only to one phase. I haven't really thought about the implication of hooking it up to only a single phase in terms of accuracy of the voltage and phase measurement.

 

[miimura]

I thought this was the case since it has the CTs and it is connected to a breaker in the panel. I guess one breaker is sufficient because our split phase power is inherently 180 degrees apart on L1 and L2.

I have mine hooked up to both phases although as you say it can work with the voltage monitor hooked only to one phase. I haven't really thought about the implication of hooking it up to only a single phase in terms of accuracy of the voltage and phase measurement.

Interesting. The instructions here explicitly say not to connect the red wire from the MTU and to put a wire nut or electrical tape on it.

 

[yblaser]

here[/url] explicitly say not to connect the red wire from the MTU and to put a wire nut or electrical tape on it.

Back when I installed mine about 2.5 years ago the instructions showed both methods, hooking up to a single or both phases. They just recommend hooking the black wire up to the circuit the gateway is on.

Originally I had all sorts of problems with noise preventing communication between the MTU and gateway. I ended up installing a noise filter that isolates the MTU and gateway from all the other circuits and have not had any problems since. I would love to get a second MTU just to monitor my EVSE usage, but since the EVSE is hooked up to a subpanel, the filter would prevent communication between the second MTU and the gateway.

 

[miimura]

I am looking for a home energy monitoring solution that can output data for a given circuit, in my case an EVSE, that is compatible with SmartMeter data. The desired output is a kWh value for each 15 minute interval. I want to process the available data from my utility meter, my PV solar system (Enphase), and my EVSE to accurately calculate energy charges in different combinations. For example, what would my utility bill be without my EV charging and without solar? without the EV and with solar? with the EV and without solar? It is theoretically possible to use the Enphase API to access this data from Enphase's online data for up to the last year. However, it appears it will require some programming to extract it. So, the question is, how do I measure my EVSE energy usage so that I can apply TOU billing schedules? Can TED, Efergy, or Powerhouse Dynamics output data like this?

I looked at Leviton Sub-Metering products and it can definitely do what I want, but it's designed for enterprise or MTU (Multi-Tennant) scale, so it's expensive. One starter bundle with an indoor sub-meter, a communications hub (that can connect 8 sub-meters) and software is $1,725. The most minimal setup I could find is a "Mini Meter" kit and a "EMB HubLite". The mini-meter has only pulse output (0.1kWh) and the HubLite can take up to 4 pulse inputs and accumulates the data with time stamps for push or pull data transfer by LAN connection. I found this solution available for sale at Gordon Electric Supply for about $975.

 

[arnolddeleon]

http://www.homepower.com/articles/home-efficiency/electricity/tracking-your-energy-use

Has an overview. I currently use eMonitor (an earlier version of their product). The eGauge looks like a good option as well. In my first house I used a custom "One Meter" built by http://brandelectronics.com/

While tracking down the links above I found this: http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/

arnold