How can I see where my electricity is going

snout71

My electric usage seems to be very sporadic recently, sometimes even though no large appliances are being used my house is drawing 4kw of power.( this morning I saw 8kw being drawn!) most of the times it’s fine 0.4-0.8 but something is not right and I want to understand where it’s going.
i recently stumbled upon people talking about Home assistant, could that potentially enable me to see what’s going on? 

I would love to be able to see which room or which socket or which appliance is drawing power and how much, smart sockets? Smart strips? 

Any advice would be gratefully accepted

Thanks in advance

Netexporter

The simple rule of thumb is that anything that involves heating uses the most. Lighting (LED) and electronic devices use very little. Things like aquariums and pond pumps can catch people out, especially as they tend to be on for a long time/permanently

Every device has it's power rating marked on it, somewhere.

FreeBear

snout71 said: I recently stumbled upon people talking about Home assistant, could that potentially enable me to see what’s going on? 

I would love to be able to see which room or which socket or which appliance is drawing power and how much, smart sockets? Smart strips?

Home Assistant could help you analyse energy consumption, but.... It has a very steep learning curve, so could take months to get anywhere with it. Picking the right sensors is another hurdle, especially for electricity consumption.

I have one to monitor whole house consumption, another on the lighting circuit, and a third for an EV charger. Of the three, whole house monitoring is the most informative as it can pick up (almost) instantly when a heavy load switches on. Still need to figure out what that load was though...

Monitoring individual appliances could be done with something like a TP-110, but importing that data in to HA may not be simple. However, you could use the TP app and save on home assistant learning pains.

An example of electricity consumption for the last ~24 hours as logged by HA.

I can tell when the kettle was put on for a coffee, and see how long the bread maker was on (12:00 to 14:00).

Robin9

If any one appliance is taking 8kW fuses in the plugs would be blowing.

Have you an electric shower ?  or underfloor heating ? 


PS 4kW   is your base load plus kettle.

snout71

Robin9 said:

If any one appliance is taking 8kW fuses in the plugs would be blowing.

Have you an electric shower ?  or underfloor heating ? 

No electric shower, no underfloor heating, hot water and heating is run by gas

snout71

I have solar batteries which are charged overnight from the grid, the batteries usually run my home till about 5pm, this morning my h9me was drawing 4kw from the batteries and 4kw from the grid so that my batteries depleted by 9am!

MeteredOut

snout71 said:

My electric usage seems to be very sporadic recently, sometimes even though no large appliances are being used my house is drawing 4kw of power.( this morning I saw 8kw being drawn!) most of the times it’s fine 0.4-0.8 but something is not right and I want to understand where it’s going.
i recently stumbled upon people talking about Home assistant, could that potentially enable me to see what’s going on? 

I would love to be able to see which room or which socket or which appliance is drawing power and how much, smart sockets? Smart strips? 

Any advice would be gratefully accepted

Thanks in advance

You can use smart sockets to track individual usage, or measuring clamps for those that don't have plugs, but I'd suggest the quickest/simplest way is to turn off everything you know about and monitor usage.

If you're still seeing the spikes, you've missed something (or your meter is broken - but that is unlikely). If it stops going up, switch things back on one-by-one until to find the culprit.

It could be something really simple such as your fridge/freezer's compressor kicking in and drawing 4kW for a short period of time. If not that, I'd isolate the inverter (if possible).

I'd agree that HA is probably not the right thing for you here.

MeteredOut

snout71 said:

I have solar batteries which are charged overnight from the grid, the batteries usually run my home till about 5pm, this morning my h9me was drawing 4kw from the batteries and 4kw from the grid so that my batteries depleted by 9am!

For how long was 8kW being drawn and what were you using to determine that?

Gerry1

Do the Meter Sanity Test to confirm it's really your meter that's showing the high consumption, and that it's reasonably accurate.

debitcardmayhem

snout71 said:

I have solar batteries which are charged overnight from the grid, the batteries usually run my home till about 5pm, this morning my h9me was drawing 4kw from the batteries and 4kw from the grid so that my batteries depleted by 9am!

How did you know the batteries were being used in the home, ditto the grid. I could be your batteries discharging i.e. exporting?

snout71

This went on for approx 4 hours this morningprox