Get some Sense... [sense monitoring solution]

[HankLloydRight]

Ok, that's what I thought. That's not what I'm talking about. Sense is really simplistic. While it can measure the actual backflow to the grid, what you're showing there is the excess solar subtracted from the house demand as "to the grid". The sense just assumes that you have two flows -- into the house from the grid, and what the solar produces. It's not actually measuring the backflow.

Due to how I have the Tesla inverter and Powerwall+, it's not possible to put the Sense CTs on the total solar production supply to measure it like how Sense assumes and demand it to be measured. For me, I can only put the Sense CTs on the 240v mains coming into the house and the solar flow is netted out before it even gets there. That's why I want to monitor the actual backflow and not just the calculated backflow like Sense does it.

I've emailed them several times about this, and each time the resulting answer is: "Too bad, so sad.. we're not changing it" -- when the ONLY thing they need to do is report the backflow as a negative number and not force it to zero like they're doing now. It's really messed up that they don't understand how this is actually supposed to work and refuse to make one simple change that wouldn't really affect many people at all. Or at an absolute minimum, make it a default option that I can turn on reporting negative backflow.

 

[zannman]

Yup. I ditched Sense.

Even though their CTs detect forward and reverse flow (i.e. net metering), they refused to report the net metering as power flowing back to the grid and just reports it as 0kw. I contacted support and they just said to turn the CTs around. No, you dunce, that doesn't solve the problem. What's strange is on the settings monitoring page, it actually showed negative kW flowing, but on the main tracking page, it reports that as 0kW.

So I dumped Sense and instead installed an Emporia Energy system: In-Panel Energy Monitors

It doesn't do automatic sensing, but it's a lot cheaper and you can put up to 16 individual CTs on different circuits.

So if anyone wants to buy a sense with the two extra CTs, PM me.

I'm a fan of the Emporia Vue. The bonus capability available when integrating with Home Assistant and a few smart plugs is the ability to turn on-off any plug based on power use.

In my case I monitor and throttle solar power for battery/time arbitrage when the house is using less than solar is producing. My electric provider doesn't offer net-metering and actually double charges you if you feed out to grid, so zero export is important. The Emporia system is reliable enough to eliminate this possibility - mainly by turning on smart plugs to dump extra load to battery or turn off small grid-tie inverters.

Additionally, the Vue really does help with conservation. I setup alarms when certain circuits with lighting get left on, which has easily saved around $10-$20 a month at our house.

Reports and interface aren't awesome, but all data can be exported to CSV to view in your format of choice.

It has room for improvement, but what it offers is pretty darn good.

 

[Will792]

I'm a fan of the Emporia Vue. The bonus capability available when integrating with Home Assistant and a few smart plugs is the ability to turn on-off any plug based on power use.

In my case I monitor and throttle solar power for battery/time arbitrage when the house is using less than solar is producing. My electric provider doesn't offer net-metering and actually double charges you if you feed out to grid, so zero export is important. The Emporia system is reliable enough to eliminate this possibility - mainly by turning on smart plugs to dump extra load to battery or turn off small grid-tie inverters.

Additionally, the Vue really does help with conservation. I setup alarms when certain circuits with lighting get left on, which has easily saved around $10-$20 a month at our house.

Reports and interface aren't awesome, but all data can be exported to CSV to view in your format of choice.

It has room for improvement, but what it offers is pretty darn good.

Isn’t it easier to configure inverter to have no export to the grid?

I did not realize that there are electric utilities that charge customers for exported electricity.

 

[bsf29]

Ok, that's what I thought. That's not what I'm talking about. Sense is really simplistic. While it can measure the actual backflow to the grid, what you're showing there is the excess solar subtracted from the house demand as "to the grid". The sense just assumes that you have two flows -- into the house from the grid, and what the solar produces. It's not actually measuring the backflow.

Due to how I have the Tesla inverter and Powerwall+, it's not possible to put the Sense CTs on the total solar production supply to measure it like how Sense assumes and demand it to be measured. For me, I can only put the Sense CTs on the 240v mains coming into the house and the solar flow is netted out before it even gets there. That's why I want to monitor the actual backflow and not just the calculated backflow like Sense does it.

I've emailed them several times about this, and each time the resulting answer is: "Too bad, so sad.. we're not changing it" -- when the ONLY thing they need to do is report the backflow as a negative number and not force it to zero like they're doing now. It's really messed up that they don't understand how this is actually supposed to work and refuse to make one simple change that wouldn't really affect many people at all. Or at an absolute minimum, make it a default option that I can turn on reporting negative backflow

My Generac PWRCell covers my whole house panel with CT’s on solar/battery (inverter) breaker and the grid mains. The From Grid is what I purchased 2am-6am and the To Grid is what I sold 6am-7am & 3pm-6pm today. It matches my PWRCell app. I can control my system and buy low (super off peak 5¢/kWh) and sell high (peak 12¢/kWh, other times are 4¢). It’s the new TOU TwoWay program my co-op just started and I’m experimenting with it. I normally wouldn’t have bought and been 100% Solar/battery. Our house is that efficient and we use very little power. Gas heat and hot water.

But Sense really doesn’t care about their solar/micro-grid customers. I reported other solar items and got the same “too bad” reply.

 

[Rocket_man]

With enough data, problem is getting and verifying all that data. I fear they are spending so much time trying to keep customer's happy they haven't been able to build a giant dataset and label it accurately

I wonder if they have money to improve the AI at all. It looks like they only get money by selling systems to new customers. There is no monthly fee from users coming in. And with the more questionable reviews they get, and more competition taking customers, how soon do they lose enough money to make any meaningful improvements. This will eventually lead to a death spiral.

Earlier this week, sense on it's own, proclaimed my Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model X would be 'combined' into 1 device.
I emailed sense, and after some back and forth, they said 'tough $hit'. and to delete it.

It will most likely re-appear, hopefully as 2, and most likely auto merged back into 1 at some future point.

I am so sick of companies doing things I didn't ask for, I didn't approve, and then making it MY problem.

Don't buy a sense. It's overpriced, the device recognition is mediocre, the support is meh.

Use the $ to just pay your electric bill, and cut back what you can if you want a lower bill. It's not rocket science.
If it wasn't actual physical effort to pop open the panel and remove it, I would. Next time I'm in there I might. a dumpster we will go.

Sense has not identified my Tesla. It doesn't even realize there is a new device. Let's see... a 32 amp load running for hours on end... nope can't find a new device there. The largest electrical load by a huge margin and it can't find it. I get a notice saying 'hey your usage today was 110% higher than yesterday' but it can't figure out that I charged my EV yesterday.

Yup. I ditched Sense.

Even though their CTs detect forward and reverse flow (i.e. net metering), they refused to report the net metering as power flowing back to the grid and just reports it as 0kw. I contacted support and they just said to turn the CTs around. No, you dunce, that doesn't solve the problem. What's strange is on the settings monitoring page, it actually showed negative kW flowing, but on the main tracking page, it reports that as 0kW.

So I dumped Sense and instead installed an Emporia Energy system: In-Panel Energy Monitors

It doesn't do automatic sensing, but it's a lot cheaper and you can put up to 16 individual CTs on different circuits.

So if anyone wants to buy a sense with the two extra CTs, PM me.

What I've learned from Sense is that some loads really don't matter that much. But I'd like to reliably monitor the big loads like my EV, A/Cs, Dryer, Oven, cooktop, etc. Things like one individual LED lightbulb don't matter that much. The Emporia looks like it may be more useful to put CTs on those breakers and read them directly. But I just don't think I can stuff all that in my panel. And it looks like each CT has a meter of cable. So that is 16 meters of cable that I have to find room for? I had to mount the Sense outside the panel because there was no room to put it inside.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Yup. Sense never identified my Model S. We just installed two new panels during the solar+PW project so there was room for the CTs.

 

[israndy]

There are many things that the AI will never identify; Plasma TVs, Inverter Refrigerators, but you CAN put KASA energy monitors on them and then Sense logs them very accurately.

For the Tesla I have an app that controls the Tesla's charging based on the solar production, this info is then sent to Sense too, even though it's 240 volts it just pretends to be another Kasa reporting it's info. My other 240 volt items have been identified successfully, my Hot Tub and the Oven.

 

[tga]

I did not realize that there are electric utilities that charge customers for exported electricity.

What's likely happening is that since the utility does not support net metering, they don't install a more expensive directional/net metering capable meter.

In a basic meter, all power flowing through the meter is measured as consumption, regardless of direction.

 

[mspohr]

What's likely happening is that since the utility does not support net metering, they don't install a more expensive directional/net metering capable meter.

In a basic meter, all power flowing through the meter is measured as consumption, regardless of direction.

I added solar about 8 years ago to my old house. It had the original meter which to everyone's surprise started running backwards with the solar. The electric company replaced it with a new bidirectional meter.

 

[israndy]

Yeah, if your power company hasn't upgraded your meter recently they will when you add solar

 

[Rocket_man]

There are many things that the AI will never identify; Plasma TVs, Inverter Refrigerators, but you CAN put KASA energy monitors on them and then Sense logs them very accurately.

For the Tesla I have an app that controls the Tesla's charging based on the solar production, this info is then sent to Sense too, even though it's 240 volts it just pretends to be another Kasa reporting it's info. My other 240 volt items have been identified successfully, my Hot Tub and the Oven.

That is interesting, what is that app? When I'm home with the car during a high production day and my car needs charging I will manually manage the charge to avoid pulling from the grid. It is not perfect, and honestly I'm not sure it really matters since in months like this I'm a net producer of power. But I'd be interested in learning how to automate this. Thanks.

Actually, I'm really disappointed in Tesla on this. I have a Tesla App that is aware of the car and the solar and for whatever reason Tesla sees no utility in them knowing about each other. They are just two pages of the same app but no realization the other exists.

 

[israndy]

That is interesting, what is that app?

It's here: GitHub - israndy/TesSense: Charge your Tesla with surplus solar generation as detected by your Sense Energy Monitor

 

[CrazyRabbit]

What's likely happening is that since the utility does not support net metering, they don't install a more expensive directional/net metering capable meter.

In a basic meter, all power flowing through the meter is measured as consumption, regardless of direction.

old mechanical meter could be flipped over in the socket and start going backwards, so people would do this to steel electricity. Digital meters they solved this by truncating the sign. Some old digital meters you couldn’t reprogram, by design. Most new meters can be reprogrammed, they even report tampering (acceleration sensor detects vibrations, orientation, and if it reboots).

 

[Rocket_man]

It's here: GitHub - israndy/TesSense: Charge your Tesla with surplus solar generation as detected by your Sense Energy Monitor

Thanks! I will check it out.

In the meantime my Sense finally detected my Model 3 after 4 months. Better late than never?

 

[israndy]

WoW! How'd ya do that? Do you plug it in and let it charge full blast? It then tapers and stops charging at some point? Since I like to charge from Solar I think my car will NEVER be recognized as it doesn't go full speed ever and I charge it to a specific point (75%) where it just cuts off, whap, not another drop (to quote Richard Pryor). So I don't think Sense will ever see it as a Tesla charging.

 

[Rocket_man]

WoW! How'd ya do that? Do you plug it in and let it charge full blast? It then tapers and stops charging at some point? Since I like to charge from Solar I think my car will NEVER be recognized as it doesn't go full speed ever and I charge it to a specific point (75%) where it just cuts off, whap, not another drop (to quote Richard Pryor). So I don't think Sense will ever see it as a Tesla charging.

I have no idea, it just showed up. But this is what it looks like on Sense when charging starts. My RWD will only charge at 32 amps. Sometimes I charge at that rate, sometimes I charge at 28 amps. But because of the way my plans bills me, it doesn't save any money by charging from solar. I can only get credit up to what I use in any billing period. So if I use more, I get more credit and the rates difference between the two is minimal. Actually, they buy at slightly higher than they charge. What I'd like is for the Tesla app which know when the car is charging, and what the state of solar production and battery charge s... I want to be able to have an option not to charge the car from the battery. Right now I set the reserve to the current state of charge to stop it from draining the battery. But sometimes I forget to reset it after the car stops charging or I forget to set it before it starts and I drain it down to 20%.

 

[Rocket_man]

I'm charging it right now at 28 Amp. But I forgot to adjust the reserve and the battery dropped to 20%.

 

[Rocket_man]

In case folks are interested, here is what it looks like when the car hits 100% (I have an LFP battery). I was charging at 28 amps, the total draw on the house was around 7.6kw. The load drops pretty steep but only goes down to around 3kw. The Tesla app still shows '28 amp' charging but it is actually about half. And it slowly drops along a curve until it really stops at that last drop off. It was using 482 watts. The house is only using around 870 watts without the car charging.

Now I am putting ~7kw into my powerwalls. The house is using less than 1 kw. Partly sunny, I hope I get them up to 100% by the afternoon.

 

[mswlogo]

I’ve had two Senses (3 houses) and 3 Teslas and Sense never found a Tesla charging. Or my Volt. It only detected Tesla when it woke up (plugged in with door open), not ever charging. You’d think that would be an easy one to ID. It must be the slow ramp up that confuse Sense.

Sense is great for total usage and “always on”. And good at detecting when most things are on or off. It’s totally random why it might find. And can take a year to stop finding stuff. It’s definitely a tool that can help you save money. No regrets. But it’s pretty bad at measuring usage of individual appliances. Especially more modern gadgets with very complex signatures.

I just built a new home and I love knowing what’s going on. I went for a Leviton Smart Panel.

This is ridiculously expensive. In some cases $200 a breaker. But some large breakers with GF and AF are expensive even without smarts. So my guess is this added about $1500 to the cost of ($1500) panel.

I maximized GF and AF on every circuit that could take it (no falsing).

One of the best features is you can setup rules such as, if the Well Pump runs for more than 3 hours alert me. Or if the Radon Fan stops drawing power for 1 hour alert me. These alerts are priceless. And they are fairly robust and accurate.

I wish the alerts were a tiny bit more flexible. But pretty nice. Like my Geo Thermal has a backup resistive heating element. I hope that, rarely, if ever kicks in. Unfortunately they put the blower fan on the same circuit as the backup heating (dumb). Any ways I’d like to know when that kicks on. So I setup a rule for 1 amp for 3 hours on that circuit. It false trips because the blower, when on high pulls about 1 amp. I can’t set it any higher. Odd how they limited it to 1 amp.

Software has been glitchy, mostly during setup. Once setup it’s not bad. I’d give it a B+

The “Garage” circuit has my Volt on 120V frequently charging which is why that’s so high.

Heating circuit is that backup heat with the blower. The usage is all blower. Furnace is the Geo Thermal compressor.

 

[israndy]

If I ever add another circuit to this house I'll be buying a new panel, so that's pretty good lookin'

I did just order a couple Zendure Superbase Vs that can be hooked to a sub panel, so perhaps I'll be able to move 10 circuits outta my panel and into this battery powered panel, I can then feed the batts with a couple of dual breaker 240v circuits and free up 6 spaces on my panel for future use...