Best Energy Monitor Australia

[Kathleen Denson]

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Electricity is expensive, and reducing your usage can save you significant money over time! One way homeowners are taking their energy management into their own hands is through home energy monitors, devices that provide insight into how much energy you're using, when you're using it, and the best ways to adjust your usage to reap financial benefits.

With this information, you can change your behavior and ultimately cut your electricity costs while helping the environment. We'll explain some important things to consider when evaluating energy monitors.

If you've ever looked closely at your electricity bill, you know it's pretty light on information. Your bill will tell you how much electricity you've used and how much it costs. Unfortunately, that's about it.

Energy monitors are a gateway to the inner energy workings of your home. They connect to your electricity meter to show how much energy your home uses and provide information about how you can make your home more energy efficient. Energy monitors come with various features, from recognizing the energy usage of individual appliances to generating personalized recommendations for energy efficiency.

Instead of connecting to service mains, some sensors connect directly to individual circuits, providing circuit-level monitoring. Either way, your energy monitor will deliver its findings to your smartphone or computer as actionable insights.

At the highest level, you'll be able to understand how much electricity your home consumes, but many monitors will provide you with even more detailed information, whether at the device or circuit level. Want to see if any phantom loads are consuming electricity, even when powered off? Your monitor could give you this insight to ensure all these devices are unplugged. Unsure if you closed the garage door? Your energy monitoring app could show you when you last operated it.

Overall, the goal of purchasing an energy monitor is typically to cut your electricity usage and, as a result, to save you money. For example, one home energy monitor company, Sense, estimates that their average user saves about 9% on electric bills.

When discussing energy monitoring, it's important to distinguish between whole household energy monitors and energy monitors for individual appliances. Some energy monitors, such as those included in some smart plugs, monitor a single appliance at a time and give you a more detailed look at that device. On the other hand, household monitors connect to your energy panel or to individual circuits to paint a larger energy-use picture. We're covering whole-home energy monitoring systems in this article.

Energy monitors can be particularly attractive if you live in an area with time-of-use (TOU) rates, meaning you pay more for electricity at certain times of the day when demand is higher. Some monitoring apps will even allow you to enter the TOU rates in your area, so they can suggest when to cut down your energy consumption accordingly! For example, it may cost less for you to do laundry or run your dishwasher during the day than at night: Your energy monitor can help you determine the best time (or times) to run different appliances to streamline your energy consumption and maximize your savings.

Some energy monitors use built-in artificial intelligence to learn specific device signatures of your appliances. Each appliance has a unique way of using electricity. Over time, these energy monitors will determine which appliances are running based on how they use your electricity. This "machine learning" period can take weeks to months, which can be frustrating if you want to start monitoring at the appliance level immediately. Ultimately, an energy monitor equipped with appliance recognition will make quick judgments on the detected appliances and, via your monitoring app, report on specific information and actions you can take on those appliances.

It's important to remember that only some monitors have this feature, and the technology doesn't always work perfectly for those that do. It's usually easy for the monitor to detect differences between a TV and a refrigerator, but devices that use electricity similarly (think heating devices, like a toaster and a curling iron) may be more challenging.

Make sure that any energy monitor you choose has a mobile app component. This app should send you notifications about things such as which appliances are running, tips for further savings, and warnings on abnormal appliance behavior, which could help you proactively replace a malfunctioning appliance. If you want to receive notifications about a specific issue with your electricity use, confirm that your chosen product has that functionality.

As we've explained, one of the best times to purchase an energy monitor is if you have already or are planning to install solar. If you fall into one of these categories, you'll want to ensure that the monitor you choose is solar-ready, meaning it can monitor your solar electricity production. Energy monitors with this option allow you to see how much energy your solar panels generate, when they generate it, and how you use it.

Unless you're familiar with your electrical panel, we recommend consulting an electrician for your energy monitor installation. Many home energy monitors market themselves as do-it-yourself, but any project attaching a device to your electrical panel will have shock hazards. Bringing an electrician to your house for the installation will increase the total cost of the equipment, but once installed, the devices allow for significant savings. Hiring a certified electrician for installation can provide confidence in your system.

Sense Home Energy will automatically identify devices in your home over time and let you name them. Using the mobile app, you can get immediate notifications and updates on every appliance in your home, see what devices might have been left on or running, and track your month-over-month energy statistics.

Smappee provides an energy monitor that will identify the unique electric signal of your appliances and allow you to name them for future monitoring. With real-time data, appliance recognition, and mobile app integration, Smappee's system makes understanding your home energy consumption and savings straightforward and can save you money on your electric bill.

For a suite of tools to monitor and control your energy use in real-time, the CURB Home Energy Monitoring System is a great option. Weekly email reports display changes in consumption and make personalized suggestions to reduce energy costs. In addition, the system is compatible with other smart home devices and is solar-ready if you want to monitor your home solar system.

The Engage platform comes solar-ready and provides real-time energy monitoring on an app and a desktop. The app includes a budget feature to set targets and track your use following those targets. Daily, weekly, or monthly reports are available.

The Wiser Energy system installs in your home's electrical panel. It provides real-time energy usage, notifications when devices turn on or off, and can help you avoid disaster. The app will allow you to track energy savings, set energy goals and give recommended actions to reduce waste and save money. Learn how the Wiser Energy monitor integrates with Schneider's Square D Energy Center, a home energy management system.

Energy monitors are one of the two major components of home energy management systems! The control aspect is the added benefit of an energy management system over just an energy monitor. Let's say you want to take action on the valuable insight your monitor provides: With a home energy management system, you can complete that action directly from your mobile device, making it much easier to adjust your behavior. You may also be able to set your system to perform these actions automatically, so you don't even have to lift a finger to lower your energy consumption (and costs!).

If you want to reduce your energy usage to lower your carbon footprint, save money, or both, install a solar-plus-storage system! You can significantly reduce the electricity you're pulling from the grid, especially if an energy monitor shows you how much energy you generate and consume. On the EnergySage Marketplace, you'll receive custom quotes from vetted solar installers, allowing you to compare your options and find a system that best fits your needs.

Hey All,

Looking to get solar and want to monitor grid power and solar power, looking at maybe one of these,

LiveHouse Automation LiveHouse Home Energy MonitorThe LiveHouse Energy Monitor monitors power use in your home. It reports Watts and kWh to your home automation controller via an Ethernet connected gateway.

is anyone monitoring their solar is ways I could have a look at ?

Saw these, but it says you need one for grid and one for solar, but not sure it does historical data

Reduction Revolution Efergy Elite Wireless Energy MonitorThe Efergy Elite Wireless Energy Monitor is the world's best selling home electricity monitor (also known as 'in home display'). It shows you how much power you are using across your entire home or business, in real time. Works for both Single Phase...

Looks like a great product. Did you end up purchasing it? I currently have a Fronius Primo inverter which I can pull stats from but that's all I can see atm. It would be nice having this installed next to my sub panel and monitoring every circuit.

In case anyone's looking at this thread, I thought I'd add that I've got an Iotawatt unit (iotawatt.com) running for over a year now and the stats are fantastic. 1sec polling over 14 CT clamps (ie up to 14 circuits) and a voltage baseline. I have 'house use' and 'solar in' (and it can give you the difference, ie 'grid use') and then a bunch of circuits so I know what the pool is using, the A/Cs etc. I get it to shove its data into Emoncms (locally hosted) so I can play with graphs and pretty stuff. I've also had it feed data to Home Assistant... when my C-7 arrives I'll see what integration is possible here!

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