Home electrical energy monitoring with Emporia

 

Click here to buy

As an energy efficiency maven, I am always interested in looking for ways to monitor my energy usage.  The more I can learn about how my energy is used the more I can figure out ways to conserve.  Over the years I have experimented with different kinds of energy monitors and just recently discovered this very affordable home electrical energy monitoring system.   

An Emporia system like the one pictured above sells for around $160.  (click here to purchase one - As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
This system allows you to monitor 16 separate circuits in your circuit breaker box.  A smaller 8 circuit system sells for around $100.  I have installed two of these systems, one in my workshop that also feeds through to the house and a separate system in the main breaker panel of the house.  

They also sell smart plugs that can be controlled by your home automation system.  These also connect into the monitoring system so you can monitor energy for specific plug in items:

I have ordered one of these to check out and might use it to monitor and control my AV system via my Alexa app and Echo devices.

Having recently installed heat pumps in both buildings and also added 5 375 W panels to my solar array, I wanted to see how everything was working out.   (I was a little shocked that my first electric bill since installing the heat pumps and upgrading the solar power system came out at over $250! - but my main reason for doing this was to stop using propane for heating both buildings and I think it will come out less expensive per heating season).

Installation is surprisingly easy so long as you're comfortable opening up your breaker panel and I had absolutely no trouble getting the system working within 1/2 an hour so.  below is a picture of my main breaker panel with the Emporia system installed:

Yes, I know, it looks messy, but it is all safe and functional.  The system includes two very large 200 Amp current transformers at the top that measure all the power coming into the building from the utility:

Then multiple small current transformers clip over the wires to the circuits that you want to monitor:

These are then all plugged into the monitor device that sends signals out via Wi-Fi. There is an antenna that pokes out through the wall of the breaker box that you can see in the bottom of the image:

A few minutes after installing the app, I could see real-time energy data showing up in the form of graphs and lists of circuits that I had named.  I particularly like that you can configure it to record power from your solar power system.

Below is a screenshot from my phone showing my EV charging station feeding some power to my Chevy volt to keep the battery warm.  The temperature is hovering around freezing in late December here in Maine and my car draws power in small bursts to keep it warm in the winter when it's not actually charging.  While I knew this was something that was going on, it is educational and informative to see exactly how much power and how often it is used to keep the car battery warm.  Keeping the battery warm dramatically extends its useful life.

 

 

This screenshot shows a weeks worth of data for my house.  Clearly, the heat pump is the biggest energy user followed by a small 1.2 kW electric heater used in my small bedroom at night (the master bedroom is heated by propane).  Solar power in this breaker panel comes from one 240 W solar panel mounted on the side of the house.

 This screenshot shows daily solar energy produced by my entire solar array of  36 solar panels:

And this screen shows the hourly solar output for the last couple of days:

Yes, the solar days are quite short in December here in Maine!

It is said that knowledge is power, so I am feeling quite empowered by all of this useful information!   I find myself opening the app on my phone several times a day and poking around through all the information to see what I can learn.  It is particularly interesting to watch the real-time chart updating every second to see the energy cycles of things like the heat pump, well pump, solar power system and EV charging station.