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Power / Electricity Apps?

mneylon

Looking for a reliable app / gadget that can give me data on power usage in the house.

I've got a smart meter installed and would love to be able to get data from it, but as far as I can tell I can't unless I switch to a smart meter tariff.

https://loop.homes/ seems to only work for UK addresses :(

Is there anything that will work for Ireland?

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Tree

Your best bet is probably to throw a Shelly EM on there. There's a P1 port on the smart meter you're not allowed to use. In theory ESB have something coming for everyone to access their data, but that's an unspecified time down the road.

ECO_Mental

+1 on the ShellyEM (I have 3...) they are good and you can use their app and not use Home Assistant but I would recommend using as you can interrogate the data easier. With the Shelly EM you can log 2 circuits, or you can get the three phase one and log 3 circuits..

I'm logging 6 circuits in my house but I have solar PV, Heat pump etc I only use electricity in my house.

CreadanLady

Whatever ESB networks have coming for consumers to monitor their usage, won't take hold. ESB are there to supply the masses, not to provide gadgets to enthusiast fanboys.

In depth analysis and tracking and the like is the preserve of the enthusiast. The average John and Mary O'Brien in Number 5 wouldn't be interested in it nor capable of interpreting it. The average 99% electricity user can barely understand the basic concept of a simple electrical circuit and probably does not know the difference between AC and DC, let alone interrogating data from multiple circuits.

Personally, I don't even see where it adds value for the average consumer. (Unless you are involved in some sort of research or engineering). I mean, you have to use a certain amount of energy. Seeing it on a litte graph on your phone - for the average Joe what does it add, except increasing the portion of your life you spend looking into a little phone screen box of nothing.

mneylon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119725693#Comment_119725693

Well you win the prize for most unhelpful reply I've got on here in a long time.

ECO_Mental

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119725693#Comment_119725693

Jeeze!!! why so negative....the OP is obviously interested in managing his electricity usage and if you are not measuring you are not managing...as the saying goes.

I'm not saying people have to go into the detail I do (I have an EV and heat pump etc so a significant electricity bill) but peoples elect bills are getting significant and you need to see if there is anything unusual or if nothing else to discount things. I have my wife set up on Home Assistant as well now and she now looks in to see how much we are using and if there is anything out of the ordinary.

For example one of my young fellas like to open the window during winter and as a result the HP could be kicking in all the time...or a stat might be set too high and again the HP will be kicking in all the time. You have to pick these up EARLY or else you could be a few weeks down the road facing a massive electricity bill. Spending a few bucks getting an energy monitor is well worth the investment particularly now.

Bawnmore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119725693#Comment_119725693

I'm actually looking for an energy monitor as well so this thread is relevant to me, but that response is actually comically unhelpful 😂

WildCardDoW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119726461#Comment_119726461

Would you be willing to put a brief walkthrough of what you did and how best to start down this path? If you even had photos of the process.

I'm interested but struggling to see how best to start. I don't yet have a smart meter so have to see on that front but I can easily setup a Raspberry Pi, it's not the "IT" bit that I am worried about but the electrics - I can get an electrician to help out no bother but they have no clue on this front so would need to give them details!

Like, is it just Shelly 1PM connected "before" the relevant fuse/RCD etc? (I'd struggle to see where I'd have the room to do it, but we'd need to take the board down.) Or at the "far end" (i.e. before your Zappi), before the first leg of the Kitchen Island sockets etc?

I assume you put one onto the P1 Port on the Smart Meter which is represented as Main ESB above? And maybe the rest are done at the far end as mentioned above?

If there was a guide on this here before (or elsewhere) maybe you know of it as your setup looks really quite nice!

ECO_Mental

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119729638#Comment_119729638

HI Yeah I can do a bit of a write up might take me a day or two by the time I get organized and take a few pics etc.

You dont need an electrician to do it as I did it myself but you have to be careful...the main thing is to power down everything on the consumer unit (trip the main switch and more) and even then treat everything as its live........I don't have anything to the P1 port on the meter (you don't need to) everything I have logged is done using ShellyEMs in the main consumer panel.

If I can I might get around to taking a pics this evening and writing a few of the steps up.

WildCardDoW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119730313#Comment_119730313

That's genuinely very decent of you if you have the time to do it.

I won't push you or anything but it's something I am definitely planning on in the leadup to getting a car charger (need the funds for the car first!) and solar panels etc. following all the other renovations I did. Just seems sometimes there's a "Google" barrier to figuring this stuff out and then you spend days wading between alternating opinions etc. that are usually two steps into the process!

Appreciate you even considering to take the time for it.

ECO_Mental

Sorry it took a bit I'm in the middle of setting up some ZigBee temp sensors around the house and boy are they frustrating to set up for some reason..

Anyway for my energy monitoring in my house I use Home Assistant (HA) Home Assistant (home-assistant.io) on a Raspberry Pi 4b as with HA you can do a way more with it than switching on the lights or using it to log your energy. Also, it is compatible with practically all vendors and suppliers so you are not stuck with one brand.

I am going to assume you know how to set up HA and to do all that stuff YouTube will be your friend there.

I decided to use the ShellyEM Shelly EM - Shelly Cloud from a recommendation from a poster on boards.ie. To be honest after looking at one or two YouTubes I was a bit nervous myself as you a have to mess around in your electrical board. Its a small little thing see picture below and basically what it does it monitors your electricity power/consumption/voltage/power factor and few other things through CT clamps. What this means is you clamp it around a cable in your main consumer board. So it logs circuits in your house not individual pieces of equipment unless they have their own circuit like the Heat Pump or your EV charger. Otherwise, it will log the downstairs plugs for example because that's a sperate circuit

The tricky part is that the Shelly needs power to do all this... and to do this you need to wire a live and neutral into the Shelly from the board to give it power. If you look at the picture above the two white wires are the CT clamps and the brown and blue are the power going to the Shelly. It sounds like you should be an electrician (any maybe you should..) but all that means is taking a feed off one on the trips in the board. See picture below the Brown and Blue highlighted are from the Shelly. What you do is loosen the clamp screws on the trip and slip the brown (live) into the L and the Blue (N) into the neutral side and you should be good. Make sure you fit them to the same circuit.

********Points to note POWER DOWN THE ENTIRE BOARD FROM THE MAIN TRIP SWITCH.....EVEN THINK ABOUT TRIPPING ALL THE TRIPS TO BE SURE...IF YOU HAVE SOLAR MAKE SURE YOU ISOLATE THIS ALSO....

ALSO ASSUME EVERY WIRE IS STILL LIVE EVEN AFTER DOING THIS AND IT CAN KILL YOU.....

USE INSULATED SCREW DRIVERS

IF YOU ARE NOT SURE YOU CAN DO THEN GET AN ELECTRICAN...IM AM NOT AN ELECTRICAN SO TAKE MY NOTES AS COMING FROM SUCH.********

(Also I just noticed there is some exposed conductor from a second Shelly feed (to the left on the highlighted one and I have fixed this now 😯

One you have the power connected you then need to fit the CT clamps to whatever circuit you want logged. One Shelly EM can log 2 circuits so you will want to do the Main ESB incomer and then whatever else. I have 3 Shellys so I log my PV, panels, the Heat Pump, the EV charger, the utility room sockets and then the kitchen island which has a dishwasher and a Quooker tap (but I rotate this last one around from time to time for example I might log the ovens.

The following picture shows the CT clamps the only thing here is that they need to be clamped around the live and they have to be orientated in the direction of the current (there is an arrow on the clamp) if you get them the wrong way it will show negative values. This is good though if you have PV as you can monitor if you are exporting as it will go to negative, just make sure you put the main ESB incomer clamp on before the PV feed

Once you have the Shelly's all wired in power back up the board (and hopefully nothing will trip) You then need to download the Shelly app and follow the instructions there to discover them. They use WiFi so you might need to make sure you have strong enough signal at the board. You can get readings and graphs off the Shelly app if you don't have HA.

Once they are connected to Wifi Home Assistant picked them up straight away and I could add them to my system. As I mentioned before I won't go into too much about setting up HA as that would take forever. But you can build all type of dash boards such as below

and they have a specific energy dashboard that is very useful such as below but it doesn't get into too much detail

For that I use Grafana in HA, you can really drill down into the data what came on when or how log its has been on.

Hope that helps some people, I wouldn't be too afraid in doing it but you do need some bit of cop on and if you are not comfortable around plugs and wires then this is not for you.

Please don't kill yourself and treat everything like it is live even when you think there is no power to the board.....

niallb

I treated myself to one of these for my birthday (I know - sad!)

https://frient.com/products/electricity-meter-interface/

It's a Zigbee device and sticks on to the front of my meter. It counts usage based on the 1000 flashes per kW the meter makes, and is in almost exact agreement with the end of day readings on my provider's account. It worked perfectly with Home Assistant using a conbee stick on a Raspberry Pi 4.

I'm still not even half way through the first month since starting the readings, but this gives an idea of what you can record. I also have daily and 15 minute readings going as well as a more visual meter for consumption in the current hour, but this is the best info. It's a battery operated device so no interference with any wiring in the box required.

The device worked perfectly for me before I switched to the new tariff as it just reads flashes, and the readings I took in the first two weeks were what convinced me to move to the smart tariff I chose.

mneylon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119738073#Comment_119738073

Does that work with a smart meter or only the older style ones?

niallb

Smart Meter.

It uses the flashing LED on the front to take its readings.

WildCardDoW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119737147#Comment_119737147

This is absolutely class.

It's something I might bring in a sparky friend to look over the board and I may struggle with room in the board but at least I know I can buy them and give it a go.

I assume I could add a new RCD /RCBO purely to power the shelly's directly versus a new circuit.

Good safety tips, plaster it everywhere in an edit maybe. (This is how I did this, you should not do this unless qualified etc. Ha)

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119738286#Comment_119738286

Worth pointing that the LEDs flash at 1000imp/kWh regardless of the direction of energy. So if you have Solar PV and export to grid, it will give false readings.

niallb

Good to know, but the device is a simple solution for the vast majority of people. Still disappointing if the flashes are a sum of power in and out. Where is it described?

Home Assistant's Energy dashboard handles sending power back to the grid well, but you need to set up different monitors for your energy sources.

An EM clamp or reading from your panel supply could be used instead.

It does support power readings being net, but I expect you'd need to talk to the meter via the P port when that's available to get accurate readings specifically of consumption and generation.

I'm in the early days with this and it's my favourite home Assistant rabbit hole since I cracked 433MHz remote control!

emaherx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119738073#Comment_119738073

I'm using Similar but a more DIY version.

https://github.com/Farmer-Eds-Shed/Home-Assistant-Energy-Monitoring

Great thing about Home Assistant is it's not just monitoring but can be used to schedule heavy appliances for the cheaper times.

For example I schedule the immersion for night rate except Friday and Saturday nights as Saturday is free during the day and also based on weather forecast (Cloud %) as I have solar Hot water and no point heating water at night at all if clear weather is expected.

ForzaForward1

This is a very useful thread. I'm only starting to look into it all. I have just recently got solar and am looking to monitor my house usage, solar generated and solar export. So I would need 3 clamps or just the two? And do I buy a Shelly with the 50a clamps or should I get a 120a?

Looking at this one: https://shop.shelly.cloud/shelly-em-50a-clamp-wifi-smart-home-automation-1#140

68 lost souls

I've been looking at this one for a while, it doesn't have native HA integration but it has been flashed by people.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EMPORIA-ENERGY-Emporia-Electricity-Metering/dp/B08CJGPHL9/ref=sr_1_12?keywords=power+monitor&qid=1668164779&rnid=1642204031&s=diy&sprefix=power+moni%2Caps%2C146&sr=1-12

paddy353

Hi everyone, is there any app / device I can use to accurately measure the impact a solar and battery system would have on my home? Any insights or thoughts would be really appreciated as it's a lot of money to invest without definitive knowledge of how much I could save.

Nelbert

I'm probably the most eclectic in terms of approach to monitoring.....

I have frient unit like above (it works excellently) on my meter with tariff set in HA to monitor costs and switch between day and night rate.

I've a shelly EM at my fuseboard to monitor my heat pump (1 clamp on external unit and 1 on internal unit including pump and immersion for legionella cycle).

I use the TP Link tapo smart plugs with energy monitoring on fridge, freezer, washing machine and tumble dryer.

All going since earlier this year and have derived some good insights....

1. When I get solar I will invest in an Eddi to heat water March - October which will eliminate a couple of kWh a day from showers. Likely a very long payback for the Eddi but means I eliminate a large daytime draw.

2. Running dryer during night rate - easier to get buy in when costs can be visualised. Longer term it's help me realise a heat pump dryer would pay for itself in 5-6 years based on our usage (young family) with savings.

3. When I get solar I've a good idea of the size of battery required to have very little day rate draw from the grid in winter and charge up and last overnight without any draw from grid in summer.

dam099

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119738073#Comment_119738073

Where did you buy from? Everywhere I've looked seems to be out of stock.

niallb

I bought mine from Amazon.de in September, but they've been out of stock since shortly after.

mneylon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120165755#Comment_120165755

Yeah - I suspect they're the kind of device that is in high demand at the moment

bittihuduga

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120165710#Comment_120165710

a newer version is coming soon...hope they have some stock

Finally here: We are launching the Electricity Meter Interface 2, LED on Wednesday

iknorr

Anyone got info on ESb opening up the P1 Port?

dam099

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121113567#Comment_121113567

I got the new version (from Amazon). Happily integrated into my Home Assistant for about 10 days, cumulative usage so far lines up with the values displayed on the meter so all seems to be working as it should.

bittihuduga

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121306461#Comment_121306461

what hub are you using with this?

dam099

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308536#Comment_121308536

Direct to Home Assistant using ZHA on a rPi4 with a Sonoff USB Zigbee Gateway (Co-ordinator)

Evan2020

Has anyone attached a Frient to their ESB meter box mine is a kamstrup dk 8660. Seems the simplest solution to track energy consumption.