Real time consumption

groar · 02-18-09, 06:07 PM

As said in a couple messages, I ordered an assembly to get my real time consumption from the electricity meter.

I moved the spare laptop, plugged a wifi USB key, recompiled the kernel to get the wifi driver, plugged the assembly, recompiled the kernel to get the serial USB driver, wrote a couple rrdtool scripts, waited a couple days and obtained this

More information this week-end.

Tomorrow evening I should plug the assembly on the production meter and measure the PV production Friday as it should be a sunny day

If it works then I'll order a second assembly to have both meters recorded in real time

As the protocol is full of French words or keywords based upon French words, this shouldn't work on US meters...

Denis.

SVOboy · 02-18-09, 11:50 PM

Excited to see more about this project.

Daox · 02-19-09, 07:11 AM

OOOooohh. Groar's getting fancy on us. Looking forward to more.

groar · 02-19-09, 03:41 PM

I updated the first post. You can see the first 3 days :

Tuesday & Wednesday in the first picture
Thursday in the second picture

We can clearly see the heat :

.	Living room	Bedrooms
morning	6:00-8:00	6:00-8:00
evening	17:00-22:30	18:30-21:30

and the water heater when the Off Peak hour begins at 22:30 and 2/3 times until 6:30.

Wednesday my wife was at home, she ran several washing machines and pushed the heat on comfort.

Tuesday and Thursday nobody was at home from 9 to 18 and the heat stayed on eco until 17:00. We can see a difference in the curves the avg and max data are drawing. To be investigated...

You can also see that I forgot 2 bulbs lit yesterday evening : today's min is 640W vs 456.7 on Tuesday. This corresponds to the two 90W outside bulbs... (the only 2 non CFL bulbs at home that we never switch on, so when it's the case we forget to switch them off...

This corresponds to 4kWh!!! (I'm feeling so ashamed compared to Bob McGovern's daily consumption...) but on a daily meter reading this can't be seen as this is lower than the standard deviation. Thanks to the min of the graphs this is very noticeable

Here are the picture of my buying meter opened to the wires plugged and the picture of the transmodulator :

Denis.

Daox · 02-19-09, 04:17 PM

Is it just me, or does a 600W constant draw seem pretty high? What do you have running constantly that adds up to 600W?

groar · 02-19-09, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daox

Is it just me, or does a 600W constant draw seem pretty high? What do you have running constantly that adds up to 600W?

Today it was 640W as I forgot to switch off the lights outside

as explained above. Tuesday it was 460W which roughly matches what I regularly see and I described in the following link :

my measures with the wattmeter

Denis.

groar · 02-20-09, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by groar

Tomorrow evening I should plug the assembly on the production meter and measure the PV production Friday as it should be a sunny day

If it works then I'll order a second assembly to have both meters recorded in real time

Today was so good that it beat the record : 7.652 kWh while my forecast for February is 5.3 kWh. As the production meter emits the same data, the assembly worked

I just ordered a second one to have both production and consumption logged simultaneously.
My scripts had to be changed a little as that meter is configured to have a single rate, not too rates like the consumption meter (Peak/Off peak) so keywords are different and the rrdtool database structure.

Here are the graphs I generated :

The intensity :

But the data is rounded at the upper integer

The power :

In fact it is the "apparent power" in Volt.Ampere. When the production is null or small (<70W) then the meter sends 100VA. When the production is greater then the meter sends values between 250 and 270VA. Over 300VA the data seams correct, but the peaks shown between 11:00-13:30 and 16:15-17:30 are strange...

The index :

In fact the graph is the difference in 2 consecutive meter readings. This works only with low resolution graphs, this is why the curve is squared. With higher resolution we see the production as pulses because the index is an integer number of Wh.

I have to improve these graphs a little...

On all the graphs, the production curve is asymmetric. This is due to the fact my solar panels are toward West. This was accentuated this morning as it was -2°C and everything was frozen, lowering the luminosity received by the panels until the thaw.

Denis.

groar · 03-08-09, 09:43 AM

This is the kind of question I can't reply to as the oven is hardwired so I can't use the watt-meter on it.

This noon we eat a 3.5 lbs chicken. It has been cooked during 1 hour at 270°C. Before that the oven was pre-heated during 15 minutes.

Here is the real time consumption during the chicken cooking :

The square and the 6 bars correspond to the chicken cooking.

A quick calculation gives : 25 minutes + 6 * 5 minutes at 2.2 kW = 2.0 kWh
ie 0.22 € at 0.1106€/kWh in peak hours.

We are using the oven only twice a month and we bought it with the house.

The peak on the first oven's bar corresponds to the micro-wave oven use.

Denis.

02-18-09, 06:07 PM	#1
groar X-Frenchy: very Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Toulouse, France Posts: 153 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts	Real time consumption As said in a couple messages, I ordered an assembly to get my real time consumption from the electricity meter. I moved the spare laptop, plugged a wifi USB key, recompiled the kernel to get the wifi driver, plugged the assembly, recompiled the kernel to get the serial USB driver, wrote a couple rrdtool scripts, waited a couple days and obtained this More information this week-end. Tomorrow evening I should plug the assembly on the production meter and measure the PV production Friday as it should be a sunny day If it works then I'll order a second assembly to have both meters recorded in real time As the protocol is full of French words or keywords based upon French words, this shouldn't work on US meters... Denis. Attached Thumbnails __________________ Earth absorbs 1.8 t CO2/head/yr, while a French generates 6.2 t CO2/yr To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. kg saved 06/08-08/09: 1816.9+382.9 (ecodriving / 1420mi not driven) = 2199.8 To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. (2.66 kg/l diesel) kg saved by 3kWc photo-voltaic solar panels : 187 kg/yr To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. (59.1 g/kWh) Radioactive wastes saved by 3kWc photo-voltaic solar panels : Long life (>100,000 years) : 2.85 g/yr (0.9 mg/kWh) Short life (<300 years) : 31.7 g/yr (10.0 mg/kWh) Based upon "official" French figures... Last edited by groar; 02-19-09 at 02:36 PM.. Reason: uploaded picture on non ssl web server and added another one

03-08-09, 09:43 AM	#8
groar X-Frenchy: very Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Toulouse, France Posts: 153 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts	Cost of a chicken cooking This is the kind of question I can't reply to as the oven is hardwired so I can't use the watt-meter on it. This noon we eat a 3.5 lbs chicken. It has been cooked during 1 hour at 270°C. Before that the oven was pre-heated during 15 minutes. Here is the real time consumption during the chicken cooking : The square and the 6 bars correspond to the chicken cooking. A quick calculation gives : 25 minutes + 6 * 5 minutes at 2.2 kW = 2.0 kWh ie 0.22 € at 0.1106€/kWh in peak hours. We are using the oven only twice a month and we bought it with the house. The peak on the first oven's bar corresponds to the micro-wave oven use. Denis. __________________ Earth absorbs 1.8 t CO2/head/yr, while a French generates 6.2 t CO2/yr To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. kg saved 06/08-08/09: 1816.9+382.9 (ecodriving / 1420mi not driven) = 2199.8 To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. (2.66 kg/l diesel) kg saved by 3kWc photo-voltaic solar panels : 187 kg/yr To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. (59.1 g/kWh) Radioactive wastes saved by 3kWc photo-voltaic solar panels : Long life (>100,000 years) : 2.85 g/yr (0.9 mg/kWh) Short life (<300 years) : 31.7 g/yr (10.0 mg/kWh) Based upon "official" French figures...

02-18-09, 11:50 PM	#2
SVOboy Administrator Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 291 Thanks: 3 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Excited to see more about this project.

02-19-09, 07:11 AM	#3
Daox Administrator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Germantown, WI Posts: 5,525 Thanks: 1,162 Thanked 374 Times in 305 Posts	OOOooohh. Groar's getting fancy on us. Looking forward to more.

02-19-09, 04:17 PM	#5
Daox Administrator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Germantown, WI Posts: 5,525 Thanks: 1,162 Thanked 374 Times in 305 Posts	Is it just me, or does a 600W constant draw seem pretty high? What do you have running constantly that adds up to 600W?