CE Pro October 2023 - 47

Today's wide-reaching power and energy management
solutions can provide an ecosystem that incorporates
smart circuit breaker modules, efficient lighting, EV
charging, energy scheduling and more.
Connect (emporiaenergy.
com) simply plugs into any
electrical outlet near the
meter and receives the same
data that is being sent to the
utility. It converts the data to
Wi-Fi and transmits it to Emporia's
cloud servers, making
it available via phone or web
app. The device needs to be
registered with the utility
(some offer a rebate that
nearly covers the $40 cost
of the device).
The Utility Connect App
several solutions to this
problem, at varying costs
and features.
Perusing Power
Monitoring Devices
Power monitoring devices
enable detailed views of
electrical consumption by
reading electrical current
at your main circuit breaker
panel. Although they don't
actually " save " energy, they
deliver insights into usage
that can save far more than
their original cost.
For example, when I first
installed an energy monitor
in my home, I immediately
saw that an old refrigerator I
kept in my garage for parties
and extra storage was not
working properly and was
using over 5x as much power
as it was supposed to. It was
cepro.com
an easy decision to replace
it, and the new refrigerator
paid for itself in about six
months with the electric bill
savings.
It also showed that devices
that I never considered as
energy hogs, such as cable
TV boxes, printers, and computers
that were powered
24/7 used far more power
than most of my home appliances
like the dishwasher
and washing machine, that
draw power infrequently.
And incandescent lights that
were usually dimmed to low
levels were not a significant
contribution to my bills.
For customers of certain
utility companies that use
specific Zigbee meters, keeping
track of electrical usage
can be simple and inexpensive.
The Emporia Vue: Utility
shows power consumption
every 10 seconds, and offers
graphs detailing usage by
minute, hour, day, week,
month, or year. It reads in
Watts, kWh, or actual cost.
Another approach is to
attach current-monitoring
transformer sensors to
each main conductor in the
circuit breaker panel and
connect them to a power
monitoring device. This will
work regardless of the type
of meter installed, but it
requires physical attachment
to the high-voltage
conductors inside the panel
and installation to a pair of
breakers for power, which
might require a licensed
electrician.
It also requires room inside
the breaker panel to install
the device and sensors, or installation
of another electrical
box adjacent to the panel.
For the normal single-phase
split feed power (120v/240v)
power found in the U.S., two
sensors are required. For
three-phase power, three
sensors are needed. To monitor
a system with solar production,
an additional pair of
sensors are used to measure
the solar power feed.
You can see the result
of turning a specific device
on and off, but there is no
breakdown by device, making
it difficult to determine the
actual monthly cost of individual
devices. Typical home
electricity usage involves
multiple devices drawing
power simultaneously, and
many devices draw varying
amounts of power over
time, so it's more difficult to
separate the electric usage
cost by device than it is with
water usage.
Breaking down cost by
device requires individual
monitoring of each device.
That can be done by
attaching a current monitoring
transformer to each
branch circuit in the circuit
breaker panel, or by plugging
devices into an adapter
that monitors (and often
controls) that device.
The Sense Energy Monitor
(sense.com) is a popular
device for this purpose. It
is available with one pair or
two pairs of sensors - the
one-pair unit is for single-phase
split power up to
400A. The additional pair
may be used for solar power
monitoring, or to break out
two specific circuits, such
as HVAC or a refrigerator. It
uses machine learning AI to
differentiate between different
types of devices.
Sense is available as a
standalone device, and it is
October 2023 CE Pro | 47
SLAVUN/STOCK.ADOBE.COM
http://www.sense.com http://www.cepro.com
CE Pro October 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CE Pro October 2023
