Simple energy monitoring for minisplit and water heater
RICHARD EVANS
| Posted in Energy Efficiency and Durability on
Dear GBA-
I am looking to monitor electricity usage for residential new construction. I am particularly interested in tracking electricity usage for the home’s 1.) Mini split heat pump, 2.) Heat Pump Hot Water Heater, and 3.) ERV.
Ideally, it would transmit the data online and offer daily, monthly, annual kwh used.
A licensed electrician is available for install if needed…
Any thoughts?
-Rick
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Replies
Have you looked into TED?
http://prodemo.theenergydetective.com/tedproxy/Footprints.html
http://www.theenergydetective.com/
Thanks Dana- that is the coolest dashboard ever! (I also love how the owner of this house has a frog pond).
Thanks for sharing!
Yabbut... I don't know what to make of the fact that the frog pond is burning twice the power of the air conditioning at 1.49 PM in July!?!
Can anyone give me a reason to buy one of these? I'm as curious as the next guy about energy usage, but at $490US (plus potentially another $50 courier extortion fee, depending how they ship it), it seems to me even if it managed to curb our energy usage (which I'm pretty skeptical about), the payoff would be longer than the life of my house.
As I said, I'm skeptical that it can save us any money. We're already aware of how much energy things use, it's hard to imagine something like this is going to modify our behaviour. I may find out the heat pump dryer is more or less efficient than I thought, but it's not like we can just do less laundry, and we already dry on a laundry line when weather permits. It just seems like it's a toy gadget.
Trevor: If you only need to monitor two circuits, the TED Pro Home is "only" about USD$300 + extortion.
It's mostly a tech-nerd toy/tool, or a tool for temporary installation if you're in the biz of chasing down energy efficiency problems. As a monitor to be used continuously at a single home the payoff is pretty low on simply energy use savings. In the event that it can tip you off to impending failure on a heat pump that could otherwise simply be repaired before it melts down it could save you quite a bit more.
Using it to monitor short cycling mini-splits due to anomalies in the installation details it might pay off on avoided energy costs if there is a correctable problem.
You could always use Sense which is either $250 or $350 depending on if you need to monitor solar output. https://sense.com/
I use the following for a rental:
https://shop.openenergymonitor.com/iotawatt-wifi-connected-14-channel-electricity-monitor/
Local monitoring is fairly straight forward to set up and use. Web side requires a bit of hair pulling or hiring a teenager.
Best,
Akos
P.S. Having looked at the energy consumption of an ERV myself, there is not much to see. They run at near manufacturer's spec and consume that power whenever they are configured to run. Boost runs are just a blip and add up to almost nothing. Not worth the cost of the sensors.
Thanks everyone. AKOS- I had never heard of that device-looks really interesting. Also thanks for the note on the ERV.
Due to the harsh winters where I live, people always ask for your propane bills when you sell your home. Our house will be all electric so I would like to have a way to track the costs to give an apples to apples comparison.
Thanks again,
If it works like it's supposed to, the IoTaWatt device via OpenEnergyMonitor.org will be your best bet. I had just placed an order a few minutes before reading this post on the forum. After exchange rate and shipping, my setup will be $263...this includes 2x 100Amp CT's and 4x 20Amp Ct's.
I found a more economical option. Eyehydro, $170 shipped for two clamps, extra ones only $15. Made in Canada.
Trevor did you mean Eyedro?
To me it seems this system does not distinguish between different loads only make pretty graphs showing the peaks and valleys.
And declares all power used in the lowest valley “phantom energy”
The hardware seems to collect similar data as Sense meter but Sense uses software to try to distinguish between different loads.
How useful is the data if you can’t know what device used how much power?
How sure are you home version of Eyedro can use more than 2 sensors? I see the business version works with 3 phase power and uses 3 sensors.
Walta
I thought the same. There seems to be little information on whether the system can be expanded beyond the included sensors?
http://eyedro.com/
Lance Peters
Yes, it looks like it can only accept two sensors. So it can only monitor whole home usage, or one circuit at a time.
I am pretty skeptical that software would be able to differentiate what devices are presenting the load. As such, I'd consider the Eyedro as an equivalent to the entry level TED or the Sense. If I want to know what particular devices are using, I would put the clamps on each circuit successively.
Maybe more than you are looking for, but I used to install eGuages for solar customers. Very intuitive graphs, pretty easy install, and good customer support. Plus the device is it's own web server, so you don't need to pay any ongoing service charges. Tons of sensor options.
http://www.egauge.net/
Brultech is another option. http://www.brultech.com. Have an ECM-1240. No connection, just worked best for me a few years back.