February of last year, I installed an energy monitor in my electrical panel. Briefly, these devices can tell you how much electricity each of your appliances at any time. We find that our heat-pump is the king, by some margin. Next comes the car charger, followed by the hot water tank. The largest breaker in my house (50A), is for the stove, which sits half way down the list in 9th place. Lets peer into the data and explore this some more.
I installed an emporia energy monitor into my panel last year. Briefly, my main goal was to get some understanding of my energy use, as I was thinking about going solar. Something I am currently actively pursuing. One of the key variables in any residential solar project is how much energy is being used. Mostly, as with net-metering, generating anything extra, makes little economic sense, as all you can do is dial your usage charges down to zero.
With that, lets review what we used. Overall usage for the year was around 10 MWh, which split according to the following table. Further the highest recorded peak usage was about 13 kW.
Lets review the three biggest users in slightly more detail. While Emporia does not offer a time of use (TOU), breakdown, we can review hourly usage data to get some idea. The Heatpump takes a slight break during peak hours, and also during the night as there is some research that a cold sleeping area makes for a more rested mind. We found that this arrangement works for us, and we use some of the less expensive overnight hours to put the heat pump to work (more here).
The Car charger is almost exclusively overnight, as that is where we get the cheapest and possibly greenest, electricity. An argument could be made to switch to daylight hours, in particular once the solar system goes online, as that might be greener than relying on grid power.
The hot-water tank is mostly overnight hours too. Again, it has a scheduling function, which permits us to heat to higher temperatures during the cheaper overnight hours (more here).
There were some other benefits too, I found I could monitor my appliances a bit more this way, for example, I could verify that the car is charging through the app.
After my home battery system went in, the need for the monitoring system is less, as the home battery system comes with its own energy monitoring functions, not as granular mind you as it only displays overall energy flow to/from the grid, not what individual circuits are doing. I must say, the 16 circuit monitors that came with it, are somewhat cumbersome and do make for a bit of a medusa in my panel. Ive done what I can with zip ties and what not, but its still a lot of cabling.
Electric car adventures 