AC charge consumption monitoring meter?

[Top_Speed1]

I came across a juice consumption meter that perked my interest up. Not that my electric bill is high or anything but just thought this would be a nice "I'm bored" ad-on toy for the Volt.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Electric-Car...item2a15429b5f

[solar_dave]

TED5000 start at $199 with a single sensor, and can have up to 4 channels of data input. On mine I have main house, solar, office/shop, Volt charger circuit. The software allows correction factors, and additive or subtractive calculations of the data. It allows you to put you utility rates in and can keep track of dollars, CO2. The gateway is standalone and contains data that can be downloaded. You view with a browser, see my signature.

Another interesting one is Brultech, although I do not have experience with it but it looks good.

[Joule Thief]

Hmm, looks interesting. The seller is in Santa Cruz where I live, maybe I can go check it out in person. I'm actually getting a smart meter installed for free next Wed by Pacific Gas & Electric. Once installed they will put me on the E9 TOU rate plan specifically for EV owners where I'll be able to charge as low as $0.06/kWh off-peak! It's a great deal. I'm going to see how much data I can get off their meter before deciding whether to buy something like this, but their meter will be for my entire home so I won't be able to specifically isolate my EV charging but I should get a pretty good idea since not much else runs on electric in my house from midnight-7am (just some vampire devices and my furnace is gas). I'm thinking I can get a baseline when the Volt is not charging and then subtract that from when it is charging.

-JT

[scottf200]

Hmm, looks interesting. The seller is in Santa Cruz where I live, maybe I can go check it out in person. I'm actually getting a smart meter installed for free next Wed by Pacific Gas & Electric. Once installed they will put me on the E9 TOU rate plan specifically for EV owners where I'll be able to charge as low as $0.06/kWh off-peak! It's a great deal. I'm going to see how much data I can get off their meter before deciding whether to buy something like this, but their meter will be for my entire home so I won't be able to specifically isolate my EV charging but I should get a pretty good idea since not much else runs on electric in my house from midnight-7am (just some vampire devices and my furnace is gas). I'm thinking I can get a baseline when the Volt is not charging and then subtract that from when it is charging.

-JT

+1 Volt for the TED5000

2 examples on this thread:
TED-5000-graph-of-two-10-min-precond-on-110v-amp-220v
http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread....-110v-amp-220v

1 example below comparing to my A/C:

[Jeff N]

Hmm, looks interesting. The seller is in Santa Cruz where I live, maybe I can go check it out in person. I'm actually getting a smart meter installed for free next Wed by Pacific Gas & Electric. Once installed they will put me on the E9 TOU rate plan specifically for EV owners where I'll be able to charge as low as $0.06/kWh off-peak! It's a great deal. I'm going to see how much data I can get off their meter before deciding whether to buy something like this

FYI, as soon as PG&E switches you to E9 you will lose access to your smart meter data on the website.

Yes, this is stupid, but it is apparently a limitation in their current software.

[bonaire]

That first one looks a bit complicated. What about going with a normal clamp Amp meter? Usually available at a hardware store.

http://www.google.com/products/catal...d=0CHUQ8wIwAA#

[flfreitas]

That first one looks a bit complicated. What about going with a normal clamp Amp meter? Usually available at a hardware store.

http://www.google.com/products/catal...d=0CHUQ8wIwAA#

The clamp meter won't keep track of total use, just what is being used while the wire is clamped.

[bonaire]

Right - I know there isn't any tracking in terms of the basic clamp meter but does address the original post (OP) above. The TED 5000 is fantastic and would be great for much more than Volt charging tracking. But to know the flow-rate of amps on the charge circuit, a clamp meter gives that instantaneous rating and you can just determine the total based on charge time times the instantaneous rate to come up with a pretty close kWh used. Many have used a Kill-a-watt on the 120V circuit to get the total consumption, but nothing easy for a 220V circuit like that is available (that I know of anyway).

I found some TED 5000s on eBay for $199 and I'm interested. What I will probably do is when I do get the Volt and get the electrician involved - I'll order up a TED 5000 to be installed at the same time. But even my Kill-a-watt is unused most of the time after I did my first home review of appliance loads. That little guy helped me put together a plan to cut kWh usage in the house and we have had a great success in lowering monthly utility bills by $100 or more. The TED would be fun to watch for a while but not sure it is a multi-year application.

One use of the TED that would have worked for me a couple years ago would have been when our well-pump was failing and drawing a large Amp load. The TED would have shown a huge spike in load when it was running and could have signaled the failing pump. We ended up having total pump failure and just needed to replace it. It was apparently drawing 25A for 220V when it was failing.

Last month, we had the lowest kWh use in many years of only 857 kWh. However, partly was due to a garage refrigerator failing to keep cold after Hurricane Irene kept it off for a couple days - that had used quite a few kWh each month. It's been replaced and we should be up over 1000 next month with the heat pump and the new 2nd refrigerator running again. The 2nd refrigerator helps in that we do fewer trips to the store and save far more in gasoline than power used to run it.

[solar_dave]

The TED is nice for the continued pursuit of savings, had mine for 2years and it is way cool as a continual reference. In fact it brought to light a problem with the solar once that would have gone unnoticed til the month end bill came.

[Jeff N]

FYI, as soon as PG&E switches you to E9 you will lose access to your smart meter data on the website.

Yes, this is stupid, but it is apparently a limitation in their current software.

Apparently this just got fixed. Yeah!

I tried it out a few minutes ago. It now shows hourly electricity usage again for E9 customers but the part of the site that shows your personal rate/cost details still doesn't support E9.