What devices to monitor using energy plugs?

TheSunIsShining

Morning

As per the post title - best devices to monitor for energy use? I have 4 Tapo 110s and I was monitoring the dryer, washing machine, dishwasher and fridge for last 2 months. I'm planning to switch 2 today to the airfryer and the freezer to get a few months data for them. But it got me thinking - if I bought another 4 plugs, what would I plug them into? What other devices are energy hungry and would it make sense to monitor? And I previously monitored the kettle for 2 months as well.

Anyone done an exercise where they try to figure out where the energy in a month has gone or realistically would that need to be done using one of the systems that wire into the consumer unit?

P.s. If of interest to anyone. Family of 4 and the dishwasher averaged 44kw per month, the dryer 44kw per month and washing machine 36kw per month. All are high A ratings.

smuggler.ie

Cant advice you what to monitor, just want to ask - what is the goal?

Just trying to get grip what is the benefit or how will it change anything if you know that your dishwasher consume 44kWh per month. You can read this info from appliance data sheet and it wont be much different that from tapo , depending on the run-hours.

Based on this information what would you do - less dish-washing, other?

I get that dryer=44kWh option would be - stop using it, put your clotes on the rope outside (most eco-friendly/money saving solution so far)

Please share if there are other options to reduce power consumption if you know.

Where it does sound sarcastic - it is not intended, just cant get my head around all this smart/metered thing

TheSunIsShining

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121443245#Comment_121443245

No. To be honest, I've been wondering the same. Like the 4th plug I had was the fridge. So what do I do with that data - like it'd difficult to avoid having a fridge!

So absolutely take on board what you said. In some ways, I'd love to know the breakdown of all the energy usage - but on the other hand, as you say, "congratulations you know what you're using energy on but what does it do for you in reality?"

It's an interesting one and I'm struggling a small bit with it myself.....!

kirk.

Hard to see the point of a lot of it

You've a rough guide from the specs and use

L1011

Fridges, freezers and anything else with compressors - dehumidifiers, aircon - can have failure modes where they keep working mostly normally but using vastly more power than expected due to the compressor never going off.

That's the only thing I'd really feel the need to monitor; and even then I don't. Smart meter interval data gives me some idea of the worst use devices and I can figure out most stuff from its specs as mentioned above.

High A rated anything usually means the old system; which is F/Gs on the current rating for most things - don't think dryers have changed over yet. There aren't A (or B-D) rated dishwashers or fridges on the new scale, for instance. So there might be a significantly lower consuming device available for those still.

TheSunIsShining

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121443857#Comment_121443857

Yes. A on the old scale.

Despite me being the one who asked, I can see exactly where the answers are coming from, i.e. it might be interesting, but what the hell can you do about knowing your dishwasher uses X kws or your freezer uses Y!

AJMG

Hi all.. I’m at my wits end with electricity bills, have a smart meter with accurate readings. My problem is the Smart Meter reports under headings like Lighting, refrigeration, entertainment etc. this is all fine. There is another heading called ‘other’ which is simply vague. My usage under this heading has gone from €21 to €148 in a few months. My units have gone from 440 to 900 in 6 months, and have no idea what’s causing it! I’ve turned off everything in the house and it’s still 0.9kWh per hour, which equates to €240 / month before I turn on a light!! Any advice on what unknown appliance might be screwing me? Any advice much appreciated!

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121443917#Comment_121443917

Basically it'd only be of use to me if it was way out of spec. And I'd check that occasionally if my bills were going high (I do actually have a monitor plug; but its in the shed!)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121443927#Comment_121443927

Turn off your breakers one by one until the vampire 900w goes away.

If it doesn't go away, you've either got someone tapping you (unlikely) or a faulty meter (also arguably unlikely)

If it does, you need to then see what's turned on on that breaker.

TheSunIsShining

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121443927#Comment_121443927

Get a few energy monitoring plugs!!!

All joking aside, something is pulling the energy. Like other user said, kill everything and put on each individual circuit and see if you can track it

AJMG

Im going to library in the morning, apparently they supply a kit for doing a full test on your home to identify heat loss and energy consumption, seems like a great initiative! I have a feeling it’s got to do with my electric septic tank or possibly the water pump. I can literally pin point the day in July where my base usage (11pm - 6am) went from 0.2kWh/ hour to 0.9kWh/hour. Either my meter decided to whack 0.6kWh on every hour or some appliance I can’t physically turn off in the house is malfunctioning

phormium

I bought one of the fairly basic plug in things to figure out what was driving my bills, they weren't astronomical but a bit higher than they should be. I checked everything in the house over the course of time.

Now obviously the info about the fridge/washing machine/dryer etc is just information as in I still have to use them obviously. I had two freezers though, one upright and another small chest freezer that was quite old, turned out that yoke was using a hell of a lot of electricity in comparison to the upright which is way bigger. Upshot anyway is I used up some frozen food and put the freezer on marketplace and sold it. It was the age of the freezer was the problem and I might again buy a spare one but at least it will be more efficient.

The only thing in the house I couldn't measure easily other than turning off everything else so that it was the only thing running was a radon fan, I can't remember exactly but it's adding 12/15 euro to each bill. Any septic tank or well pumps that are running continuously that shouldn't be or faulty in some way?

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121444010#Comment_121444010

Chest freezers are, when of equivalent technological age and working to specs, vastly more energy efficient than uprights. (extremely) Basically the cold air stays in them when you open the lid.

AJMG

Thanks for the advice folks. The annoying thing about the new smart meters is when you turn off a breaker for an hour for example, you’ve to wait 2 days for the info to update on the app, it’s not real time. And the reading is in full units, not even broken into tenths so very difficult to monitor. I miss the old spinning dial on the old meter where you could physically see it speed up and slow down as you checked.

phormium

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121444030#Comment_121444030

I know that but in reality chest ones are only good for stuff you don't want to access day to day, the convenience of the upright with separate drawers for different food groups make it worth it! I'd say I've opened freezer half a dozen times already today, mind you I am prepping Christmas stuff :) The upright I have is taller than me yet was using half what the small chest one used, it's worth it!

10-10-20

Just on this topic, let me tell you about what I used a power monitoring plug (and Home Assistant) for last week:

I had and old side-by-side fridge-freezer which was working ok for 22 years. It has been pulling 1.9kWh per day for the last 3 years at least (694kWh per year). Anyway last Wednesday I noticed that the milk was warm and when I checked the freezer I noticed that it wasn't cooling at all. I pulled the power for 1 min and when I plugged it back in the compressor came on and started to work again, so my food was safe for now, phew. About 4 hours later the same thing happened on Wednesday night. I pulled the power and it worked away again.

It was going to be Thursday night by the time I made it down to the shops to order a new unit, so I needed to ensure that the food remained frozen during that time. So I knew that pulling the power after the unit had shut-down recovered the compressor again for a few hours, so I setup an event on Home Assistant to monitor the electrical consumption of the freezer and watch for a period when the power in watts was less than 100w for more than 10 mins.

When that event was seen by Home Assistant it was to send me a notification on my phone and also power off the freezer for 1min and then power it back on again. Following that I made it to Saturday evening when the new unit was delivered and the fridge was automatically reset by Home Assistant around 5 times. The new unit has now been plugged in for 7 days and its efficiency is far better than the last - it's only pulling 0.8kWh per day, so around 292kWh per year.

So yeah, smart plugs on devices can be very handy for troubleshooting some issues!

Quay_Koncept

Interesting thing I noticed yesterday, I have some plug in fairy lights that come on at dusk and stay on till dawn each day which i assumed where LEDS, i bought them 2 years ago and had assumed they didnt sell incandescent fairy lights any more. I decided to compare how much electricity they drew compared with a similar set of xmas led fairy lights

Old Set 8.5 w (which i thought were leds)

New Fairy Lights 1.7w (definitly LEDS)

So they are are actually incandescent bulbs so ill be getting rid of them, they dont even get warm which is why I assumed they were LEDS, so by just swapping those I can cut my leccy bill a bit. So that was handy.

Oh yes another interesting observation, I have a very long set of led fairy lights and when you put it on slow dim and light up effect the electricity draw goes by nearly 40% so putting your lights on a dim bright dim setting will cut your xmas light bill too :) (maybe people know that allready)

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121451338#Comment_121451338

Hmm - any bulbs pulling less than around 15w are definitely LED. You might find that blue LED's have a higher consumption than other colours, but 8.5w is a tiny amount to be concerned about.

It might be a case of "conditioning", if you want to call it that. In the past all lamps (LED, CFL incandescent) were rated A++ to F and all LED's were automatically rated A and CFL's were ~C and incandescent were then F. In that system LED consumed around 3.5w, CFL's 15w and the equivalent incandescent was around 75w, so there was a considerable difference between LED and incandescent.

Recently that rating system changed as incandescent was phased out, so it now goes A to G, but it only rates CFL and LED. So now your energy consumption scale is much shorter, from around 1w for high efficiency LED's to around 15w for some CFL's. So now even LED's can seen inefficient when they aren't in reality, just the scale has changed and the perception is different.

So 8.5w will only cost you one electrical unit in 117hrs while the equivalent incandescent set of bulbs at ~60w would have consumed that same electrical unit in 16 hours. 😀

L1011

LEDs have got more efficient over time also

You will likely never save the cost of replacing that set in energy savings

Padre_Pio

The low hanging fruit is anything that generates heat.

So water heater, washing machine, dishwasher, storage heaters, tumble dryer etc etc.

If you have these under control then you're most of the way there.

After this you're looking at PCs and gaming consoles, and anything that's usually always turned on, or on standby.

After that, the cost of installing a monitor is probably more than the savings you'd ever make from it.

pjordan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121444990#Comment_121444990

Just out of curiosity, what Power monitoring plug and home assistant did you use? Any one any recommendations on this. I've a PV system and the inverter displays real time power consumption, but I'd like supplementary instant access to something on my phone to compare and try to identify big draw appliances/items if possible

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121452254#Comment_121452254

This Athom:

https://www.athom.tech/blank-1/uk-v2-plug-for-esphome

Now granted it's not the cleverest device to install onto a fridge-freezer (as a failure of the device will cause the loss of power to the fridge), but they are handy for what I need.

You can also get a Tasmota version too.

batistuta9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121443917#Comment_121443917

You could try different cycles on dishwasher/washing machine etc. & see if they're any cheaper to use.

The manuals usually don't list the energy consumption for all of them, are they even accurate?

smuggler.ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121458900#Comment_121458900

I would say they quite accurate, based on device component specifications and "set" conditions.

With time, your dishwasher heater element will/might limescale-up - this will have an effect on power consumption.

Your mains/tank water temperature will be different during seasons - this will have an effect on power consumption.

However, its not manufacturers "accuracy" problem its the conditions that cannot be predetermined

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121459179#Comment_121459179

Exactly. But the weight of clothes is the biggest determining factor as this dictates how much energy is required to heat both the water and clothes up and also to spin them. So for a "standard" load then the manufacturer's spec should be pretty precise.

smuggler.ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121459542#Comment_121459542

Absolutely agree with you... and this is another factor accounted, when they do provide consumption tables in their manuals

from one of bosch models...

and if anyone has time and interest, IEC 60456 standard here

https://www.iecee.org/certification/iec-standards/iec-604562010