whole house monitoring
Brock
Solar Expert Posts: 639 ✭✭✭✭
Ok, in another forum I followed a thread about "TED", the energy detective, at first I sort of blew it off, then got interested and now just ordered one.
http://www.theenergydetective.com/frameset.asp
Basically it has two clamp on meters that attach to your incoming mains inside the main breaker panel and then you plug in a monitoring devise to any outlet in the home that tells you your instantaneous usage; basically a whole house version of the kill a watt. I will also try it on the outputs of my inverters to see how accurate it really is compared to the inverters and MX-60 Sort of spendy, but it will be my Christmas present
I will let everyone know more about it once I get it. I was excited about it and I figured you guys might appreciate it, where my wife, probably not so much
http://www.theenergydetective.com/frameset.asp
Basically it has two clamp on meters that attach to your incoming mains inside the main breaker panel and then you plug in a monitoring devise to any outlet in the home that tells you your instantaneous usage; basically a whole house version of the kill a watt. I will also try it on the outputs of my inverters to see how accurate it really is compared to the inverters and MX-60 Sort of spendy, but it will be my Christmas present
I will let everyone know more about it once I get it. I was excited about it and I figured you guys might appreciate it, where my wife, probably not so much
3kw solar PV, 4 LiFePO4 100a, xw 6048, Honda eu2000i, iota DLS-54-13, Tesla 3, Leaf, Volt, 4 ton horizontal geothermal, grid tied - Green Bay, WI
Comments
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Re: whole house monitoringBrock wrote:Ok, in another forum I followed a thread about "TED", the energy detective, at first I sort of blew it off, then got interested and now just ordered one.
http://www.theenergydetective.com/frameset.asp
I'll be awaiting your report, it looks pretty nifty.Powerfab top of pole PV mount | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
|| Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
|| VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A
solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister , -
Re: whole house monitoring
those wives just don't see the beauty in these things. Maybe when they see how much money can be saved to buy new shoes they will understand. -
Re: whole house monitoring
i just spent a couple grand installing about 200 square foot secition of my house (nu-wool, recycled jeans, good rvalue) and you know my why was just not excited about it. :roll:
sounds cool brock. having a killawatt it seems kinda pointless however. :? -
Re: whole house monitoring
Well I got it and it is pretty cool. Basically it has two small clamp on type meters that clamp on to you mains coming in. Then those two clamp on amp meters lead to a small box that has power leads, just tap the hot to a 15 amp break and the neutral to the neutral buss and close up the panel. Then plug in the other end in any outlet and it starts working. It looks like the smallest reading is 10 watts, pretty good though. It gives the readings in kw/hr so a 200 watt load looks like 0.200 on the display.
My problem is half my loads are on our inverters and are basically disconnected from the house mains and grid when we are on peak. So you never see the loads on the “TED”. I did play around and move the little clamp on meters to the output of the inverters and it worked fine. It matched the inverters numbers very closely.
Oh I have to plug in to the inverter outlets around the house when I was connected to the inverter side and of course have to connect to the normal grid outlets when I have it metering my main grid input. I think mostly I will leave it on the grid and hopefully my wife will watch it more closely.
It is neat to see it automatically drop from 2.2 kw to .090 kw when on peak hits. Basically it just disconnects my inverters and they act like the grid failed and start invertering. Then when off peak hits the load obviously picks way back up as it charges the batteries back up.
So far the most I have used the batteries is a 400 amp discharge on the 2000 amp bank or about 80% when my wife baked something on peak using the inverters. Typically we use about 100 amps or 5% and during the summer we would often use none with the solar panels in good sun.
I am half tempted to get a second unit for just the inverters. Right now she will turn on lights and nothing happens on the TED because they are on the inverters.3kw solar PV, 4 LiFePO4 100a, xw 6048, Honda eu2000i, iota DLS-54-13, Tesla 3, Leaf, Volt, 4 ton horizontal geothermal, grid tied - Green Bay, WI -
Re: whole house monitoring
Brock,
How will that unit work for Grid Tied Inverters... Nothing on their web site says anything about the ability to log power direction, but I would guess if it is a simple current clamp that the TED cannot tell the difference between incoming and outgoing power... I.e., when I use 10 amps, and when I generate 10 amps, the TED will read the same thing (no minus sign, etc.) and just add up generated power as power usage.
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: whole house monitoring
You know I thought of that when I was installing it but haven't tried it yet. Let me go try, just a second...
Ok I pumped 10 amps backwards out the main (shhhh I am not set up to do that) but starting the genset and using the external chargers to push the batteries up and set the sell point way down. The meter went to around zero and sat there. I was surprised it just didn't start read positive again.
So for grid tied it wouldn't work so well once you pass zero and your totals would be off.
Can you meter after the inverters to see just what the house is pulling or is in just feeding back to the main panel? I though Darell had a separate meter for the grid tied inverter and another one for his house?3kw solar PV, 4 LiFePO4 100a, xw 6048, Honda eu2000i, iota DLS-54-13, Tesla 3, Leaf, Volt, 4 ton horizontal geothermal, grid tied - Green Bay, WI -
Re: whole house monitoring
Thank you Brock,
Interesting it went to zero... If it can do that (read zero when power is being pushed back to the utility), then it should be able to measure reverse power too. Perhaps it is worth an email to them to ask and inform them of this new thing called "grid tied" solar (perhaps, they are trying to prevent very low power readings from ever reading negative and confusing the owner).
In California, there is only one utility meter required for Net Power billing/usage... And in my case, the grid tied inverter is just another two pole (240vac) breaker in my main panel--so I can read the inverter power, but everything else is simply added together in the main panel's bus bars.
From what I understand in a few emails to Darell, he had two meters--one was the standard E7 Time of Use meter for residential power (now restricted to current customers only as the rate is really too good for the solar PV user and not so good for the utility), and he had a second meter just for charging his electric vehicles (with a very deep discount for middle of the night usage).
But (I am sort of guessing a bit here), he gave up the second meter because of the way PG&E calculates base line rates (first 300 kWhr/month is one rate, next 100-120% another, 120% to 200% a third, 200% over is another rate, 300% is even a higher rate)...
The crazy part about the rate is that, one would think that baseline would be credited (or at least ignored) for the periods you are generating power... However, what really happens is that the power you generate also pushes up your baseline total.
For example, two meters (one residential TOU, one special Electric Vehicle TOU), two time of use periods. During peak-residential TOU (noon-6pm/off peak), I am net positive generation by -183/-115 = -298 kWhrs (peak = $0.29 / off-peak = $0.09/kWhr). (real numbers from last July from my system).
Now, I take the Electric Vehicle rate E-9... One would think that Darell could charge at $0.05/kWhr--but no... In my case, I would be at ~300 kWhrs of total usage (no matter that I GENERATED THIS BASELINE USAGE POWER, NOT CONSUMED THIS POWER). Take the E-9 EV charging meter, and at 131% of baseline (300 kWhrs in my case), if I use anymore power than 90kWhrs that month to charge my vehicle, I would be paying $0.15/kWhr, and if more than 300kWhrs of EV meter use, I would be paying $0.29/kWhr of energy use...
So, basically, in my case (using my best summer numbers), I generated an extra 300kWhrs of power, and if I used the E-9 EV meter, I would have to pay upwards of $0.15 per kWhr for power I generated (at $0.29 and $0.09/kWhr).
If, however, I charged from my E-7 OPk meter, I would only pay $0.09/kWhr and I would be reducing the -115 kWhr off-peak baseline, and I could go another ~115 kWhrs of usage, and still be at baseline paying $0.09/kWhr. And I could play more games to figure out if I would be better paying the next higher tier in E-7 OP of $0.19/kWhr or using more of my (generated PK baseline) that the utility "paid" me $0.29/kWhr instead (which reduces my -183kWhrs baseline amount, and gives me more $0.09/kWhr baseline to consume)...
And, in reality, from what I understand, it even gets a bit more complicated than that during the billing... They allocate the baseline rates, based on percentage of usage, across the all of the meters and TOU's periods--So (for example) 1/3 for E-7 TOUPk, 1/6 for E-7 TOUOPk, 1/6 for E-9 TOUPk, and other 1/6 for TOUOPk. And, you you will end up paying higher prices for off-peak power (even though you were generating, not consuming, power from noon-6pm).
It hurts my head to figure out the mess of the interaction between the meters, baseline, rates, etc... And, from what I have read from Darell, if there is a question or confusion in the way the rates are applied, the method that is most favorable for the utility is chosen (like, who would of thought that baseline would be used up by both consumption and generation).
In the end, Darell yanked his E-9 EV TOU meter a while ago (for the above reasons--I think).
At this point, I don't think I could even write a spreadsheet or computer program that would allow me to enter "what-if" numbers at the beginning of the month so that I could manage my power among all of the TOU + two rate schedules + baseline to optimize my usage.
And, you have to be very aware of what you are doing here--The lowest price is around $0.05/kWhr and the highest is $0.53... Do something wrong, and you could be paying 10x the price if your baseline/timer/branch circuits are used incorrectly. And, you really don't know what you did wrong until the next bill arrives in the mail.
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: whole house monitoring
Yes I think I remember Darell talking about that now.
Boy with that mess one meter makes a lot more sense. I am just staying clear of it at this point, mostly because I can use all the power I generate, so far. We may end up moving and if we do I am getting a much larger array and then we will have issues. Although I am still leaning towards just disconnecting from the grid during on peak and re-connecting off peak, what I do now and hope I don't make much more then I am using.
Oh one month this summer I accidentally sold 1KW back to the grid, my meter read 1 KW on peak less then it had the month before and guess what, they charged me for 1 KW I just let it go...
I normally stay connected to the grid but set it to “0” for amps in and “0” for selling during on peak. I do this because if my AC or something large starts the grid really helps stabilize quick hits like motor starting, where if I completely disconnect the lights will flick noticeably when the AC starts. In the end it is suppose to be a zero load but apparently wasn’t that month3kw solar PV, 4 LiFePO4 100a, xw 6048, Honda eu2000i, iota DLS-54-13, Tesla 3, Leaf, Volt, 4 ton horizontal geothermal, grid tied - Green Bay, WI -
Re: whole house monitoring
When I first connected with the grid tie (a little over 1 year ago)--there was a week or so overlap between the approval and changing out my meter... So, I had 100-200 kWhrs of generation on the old meter.
Apparently, the meter reader read the meter correctly, but there was a software hack that attempts to correct miss-reads. So, I would guess, if there is a "negative power usage recorded" that they add 1, or 10, or 100, or 1,000, etc. until the readings are positive again (assuming that was the digit that was miss-read). My first bill for 1-2 weeks of usage was for 800-900 kWhrs (or ~$400) instead of a credit of ~100-200 kWhrs... They refused to credit the bill, but did knock it down to the minimum payment.
Needless to say, my wife was none too happy. Darell said that almost everyone had a 1st month bill horror story with solar PV and PG&E.
Also, I did drop the folks at "TED" a question about their whole house monitor and grid tied systems (with a link to this thread). I will let you know what they say.
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: whole house monitoring
And the answer about "TED":TED will not currently provide net metering. It will have that ability in 4-5 months. We will keep your email address on file and notify you when it becomes availble.
Thanks for your inquiry! And your patience....
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: whole house monitoring
Oh the other interesting thing is it has a phone jack on the side, I haven’t read anywhere what it's for but I am hoping at some point that make it able to share it’s data to a computer.
My dad came over last night and saw mine and asked me questions about it for a while, then sent me an email saying he ordered one3kw solar PV, 4 LiFePO4 100a, xw 6048, Honda eu2000i, iota DLS-54-13, Tesla 3, Leaf, Volt, 4 ton horizontal geothermal, grid tied - Green Bay, WI -
Re: whole house monitoring
Reading through their website, there is supposed to be a PC connectable version available in a few months (same unit as the net metering?).
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: whole house monitoring
I just hooked up my TED myself and I think it's pretty neat. I know this is an old thread but seems appropriate. It's like a kill-a-watt for the whole house. I ran around turning things on and off noting how much power they use. I can really see where the KwH are going. Pool pump 2000 watts! Gas heater 900W, water distiller 650W, fridge 250W, my electric car 2.9Kw! Even little Cf bulbs make it go up 20W. The last digit is always 0 so it reads to the nearest 10 watts. It even reads voltage and I have the PC link but haven't done that yet. Also tells you how money you are spending per hour. Don't get jealous, I live near Hoover Dam and only pay $0.05/kwH. The current probes that clamp around the 2 main feed conductors have a red dot on one side. I think they only read current in 1 direction, haven't seen the one for measuring reverse like grid tie. It didn't seem to work on any outlet but had to be on the one branch circuit breaker that you connected the sender to in the panel box. -
Re: whole house monitoring
Ya he said they were going to do an upgrade to allow for backwards flow. He said they hadn't thought of that when they originally designed it.
On a side note, is your pool pump a 2 speed motor? If not that would save you a LOT of $ and it is so much more quiet.3kw solar PV, 4 LiFePO4 100a, xw 6048, Honda eu2000i, iota DLS-54-13, Tesla 3, Leaf, Volt, 4 ton horizontal geothermal, grid tied - Green Bay, WI -
Re: whole house monitoring
And they are almost two years behind the date they told me a net metered version of this unit would be available.
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: whole house monitoring
I installed my TED model 1001 on Jan 18th. The remote display unit now has a USB port on it. So, my Remote display is in the computer room/office. I also bought the Footprints software and it has some neat capabilities. However, the s/w seems buggy. Every once in a while it will lock up and lose communication with the TED. I have to disconnect and reconnect the USB cable to get things working again.
I'm presently closing in on a grid tie system so I will contact them to ask for the upgrade to read net metering also...
One feature of the Footprints s/w is the ability to export data to Microsquish Excel... Needs some improvements but is a nice feature. I have already used TED to monitor and adjust my life style (I've already replaced over 10 incandescent bulbs with compact flourescent!)....
More to come when I get a grid tie system installed later this spring! -
Re: whole house monitoring
Add another one to the list. Got the TED 1001 w/ Footprints 2 days ago. Cost wise, best to go the Kill-A-Watt route. The main advantage over the Kill-A-Watt in it will do 220V loads. Have it hook to my Eee PC in the basement. Installed the Firefox toolbar on the Mac to monitor it. Right now it is showing 20 watts :D . -
Re: whole house monitoring
im glad i found this thread, does anyone know if it works with Linux? I was about to buy one of these:
http://www.energyfederation.org/cet/default.php/cPath/388_2300
if no linux, does the monitor add up data for times when the pc is off? thanks! -
Re: whole house monitoring
Just a couple warnings that apply to most whole house monitors:
1. Some clip onto the meter and watch the disk spin or on the optical port (one blink per revolution). At least one utility took a bi-directional link off of the meter and threatened service (guy programmed up his own two way interface that could read the "public" data registers).
2. None of the systems that I have seen (I have certainly not seen all, or have read all of the manuals), at this time, will work with net metering... At best, they appear to add up energy consumed and energy generated into the "energy consumed" bin. T.E.D. has been promising a Net Meter unit for years.
Perhaps the "T.E.D." like system that WindSun said (in another thread) that will be out in the next few weeks will address some of these issues. Might be worth waiting to see what this new product looks like.
The other thing to watch for (perhaps, "look out" for--assume that this going to increase our overall rates)--Smart Meters. Sounds like, for California at least, that these will be rolling out over the next couple years--may include a web based interface (through the utility).
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: whole house monitoring
ooops.. posting before reading again, yes the unit logs data if unplugged.
Ive been doing some comparisons and so far find some of the major differences are:
the blue line mounts to the meter outside
blue line uses batteries on both ends
blue line is wireless
blue line looks cooler.
TED is hardwired but uses existing electrical wiring to send data so you can plugin anywhere, i like this. uses 8 cents month to run. TED has add on for data access.
any other big differences?
i just want something that where my wife can see $. that may interest her more than KWH's and such.
so far im leaning toward the TED as install looks easy enough and is maintenance free. -
Re: whole house monitoring
thanks bill i was writing while you were writing. -
Re: whole house monitoring
I would tend towards the TED if I had to get one today... Although, because I have GT solar, 1 year net metering, and a complex tiered rate plan--it is virtually useless for me as it (as currently designed) cannot provide any accurate information for my setup.
Other than that--it is perfect! :roll:
I do not like the batteries and hanging hardware on an external meter (mine is at the front of the house--so I don't want to attract any attention with extra hardware).
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: whole house monitoring
well,
i got and installed my TED today. I had some problems due to not reading the directions properly (what me?), and also some were left unresolved. One issue I ran into was getting the remote unit and the logger on the same phase. neophyte that i am with electricity i'd never heard of phase, determined with help of the manual that every other breaker is the same phase and got it working, but could never get it going on my living room circuit. i definitely had the right phase and the right circuit but, according to the manual, one of my problems might be the surge suppressors i have on that circuit. It said something about surge suppressors can cause it to lose the signal and have it go off to ground. I got real sick of experimenting and finally just set it up on one of the kitchen circuits as i don;t want to get rid of those surge suppressors.
then i noticed a wierd thing, that my KWHs were kind of high so i started doing some load testing and found that running on the microwave LOWERED the kwh's. so what it looks like it was doing was reporting the wattage going OUT to the grid from my solar (but as a positive number, at least while the sun was shining, i dont know if it would have gone to a negative number later...or if it does negative numbers). i guess you could monitor solar production to a degree that way. i reversed the connectors that clamp around the mains and its been working perfectly (neg and pos i guess). it's quite accurate... as you were saying Bill, with grid tie its not going to give me an accurate $, and I knew that, but it will tell me how much power the whole house is using which i find very very valuable. im hoping also the realtime cost per hour info will be interesting (motivating) to the wife and kid. one can hope. -
Re: whole house monitoring
Yep, if you can put the TED on your main house branch and figure out how to wire just the GT inverter to the main circuit so the TED does not see its current adding to everything else...
If you have room in your current transformers--say you have the mains going "up" through the transformers. Take A-B phases for your GT inverter (where they go into the branch circuit breakers--and run the GT "A" phase "backwards" or "down" with respect to the Main "A" Phase... And do the same thing with the "B" phase...
According to my 30 year old physics book and Mr. Maxwell--the sum of the GT inverter will "zero" out its current flow (sum of the current is zero because Main goes "UP" and GT Branch goes "down"). And now you will only see the "house" current without having to rewire your home to put the GT on a completely separate feed wrt the house wiring.
If the TED reading doubles, reverse the GT circuit direction so the current flow is counter to the flow to the meter. Or, possibly you got your A/B main/inverter phases mixed up.
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: whole house monitoring
Should work fine with grid tie (at night)Powerfab top of pole PV mount | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
|| Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
|| VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A
solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister , -
Re: whole house monitoring
Hi
either i wasnt clear (i get that alot) or i misunderstand you Bill(and Mike)
Its working fine and its only reporting the household used current, even in the day. this is what i wanted and it seems to work. All i did was change the clamps (CT's) from + to - on the mains coming in, and make sure they were facing the right way as the manual said. it started measuring accurately (only household usage) immediately.
when they were reversed for some reason it was showing the wattage going to the electric company minus the loads. For example: the array was putting out 1.4kw, so the TED was reporting that i was "using" 1.4kwhs (a positive #). when i put on a load it decreased respectively. (I also , other than swapping them, may have had the orientation wrong on the CTs, theyre supposed to face the same direction).
from what i can see my inverter feeds back solar generation to the grid via 2 of my 110 breakers. i am not sure why the TED IS working in the daytime (and evening) with the numbers not being affected by the gridtie. but i am happy with it this way. -
Re: whole house monitoring
lamplight
Had the same problems with the clamps, with both dots the same direction, loads would reduce the total KW's. Had to reverse just one clamp to get it to work.
Have mine here at the computer, can see when the well pump is on/off, etc.
Current readings
KW 0.020
KWH Today 1.7
KWH MTD 2.0 -
Re: whole house monitoring
One trick I have found was to put the input from the ted unit in the panel to the same breaker as where ever you have the meter. Even if they were on the same phase or side it still sometimes got flakey, but then I just moved the wires to the same physical breaker and I was fine.
Oh one other thing sometimes TED can turn X-10 devices on and off, that REALLY confused me at first. Apparently they send on almost the same frequency.3kw solar PV, 4 LiFePO4 100a, xw 6048, Honda eu2000i, iota DLS-54-13, Tesla 3, Leaf, Volt, 4 ton horizontal geothermal, grid tied - Green Bay, WI -
Re: whole house monitoring
im not sure how (this is getting confusing) but after a day or 2 its back to reporting the current thats going OUT (via my gridtie) as a positive number that is decreased by a load when i turn it on. I swaer i had fixed this by rotating one of the clamps on the mains, but apparently not. soo.... for forecasting with this device is not going to work for gridtie. i've emailed the company asking about options about a week ago with no response yet (as id read some of you have been told there will be a grid tie aware model coming out). -
Re: whole house monitoring
ted 5000 is supposed to out in a month according to the company, they gave me a return on my newly purchased ted1000
watch the website i guess:
http://www.theenergydetective.com/index.html
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