Efergy Whole Home Power Monitor

They say small things amuse small minds, so this is sure to provide me with countless hours of unbridled enjoyment... Earlier today, I installed an Efergy power monitor which allows me to track our home's energy usage in near real time via a dedicated desktop display or by way of my web browser. There's an Android app available through Google Play that also permits you to access the dashboard on your mobile device. Unfortunately, it's not currently available through the Amazon Appstore, but I've contacted the Canadian representatives and they're going to follow-up with their UK head office to see if it can be added. For now, I can access it via my Q10's browser.

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You can also generate various reports and export this data to Excel, and with additional clamp meters you can monitor individual branch circuits if I should so desire.

A reasonably priced and easy to install tool for anyone who would like to keep a close eye on their power usage.

Nice to see that these kind of apps can work with BlackBerry!

It's an interesting product, and the CSV reports provide you with minute by minute breakouts of your power consumption.

Looking at today's graph, you can clearly see the sawtooth pattern created by our refrigerator cycling on and off. I was working at my desk until 03h25 this morning, then packed it in for the night. At that point, our home was drawing 80-watts at its ebb (basically, our alarm system, garage door opener, PBX, modem, router, a couple of ThinkPads, night lights and various other electronic devices) and 190-watts whenever the refrigerator cycled on.

At 06h19, the timer on our Nyle heat pump water heater snapped-on and the DHW tank began recharging. It starts out drawing about 350-watts, but as the water at the base of the tank gets progressively warmer, you'll see that gradually climb to almost 700-watts (it's working harder to overcome the extra lift). At 08h11, it shuts back-off for the day.

The refrigerator saw-tooth continues, of course, and the short spike that you see at 08h58 is a morning cup of hot chocolate being heated in the microwave; the heavily shaded area that follows is our George Foreman mini-grill being used to prepare breakfast. The spike at 12h13 is the microwave again, then at 13h00 lunch preparations. After that, you'll start to see the dehumidifier on the lower level begin cycling on and off, then the addition of the slower cooker at 17h30. Around this same time, demand continues to creep up as various lights get turned on with the approach of darkness.

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The primary reason for buying this system is so that I can more accurately track the power demands of our two ductless heat pumps in relation to outdoor temperatures. I do that now on a daily basis (see sample chart below), but this will allow me to drill-down even deeper.

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