Energy Dashboard: Add Oil-Usage in addition to Gas

CChris · October 6, 2022, 9:19pm

Right now, the energy dashboard does only provide some basic options for your energy monitoring.

generators (solarcollectors)
grid (import / export)
battery
Single devices
Gas

Right now, I do see one major issue with this kind of setup:

GAS is the only option that can be setup for “heating”
IN fact, there are other options, such as GAS or even electricity.

Measurements can be made for Oil (there are sensors available which measure the fill level of an oil tank)
But also, if you use electric energy, you might have a dedicated meter for it.
[Using Solar Energy for heating, using Grid import for heating, etc.]

The energy dashboard should therefore provide another setup:

Generator (Solar Collector)
Battery
Power usage (general)
Heating (which can be: GAS, Oil, Electricity [with its own meter, if available])

Masmi · December 2, 2022, 4:01pm

With the energy crisis not coming to an end anytime soon, it’s very useful to be able to keep track of alternative heating sources (oil, petroleum, pallets, …)

My situation:

I’m using a 5,5KW Toyotomi forced flue petroleum heater as main heating source.

When I refill the petroleum tank I run an automation to increase input_number.
Works pretty well and I keep track of the daily/monthly/yearly petroleum usage in liters this way.

I would be very nice to have an option for petroleum/oil added in the Engergy dashboard.

All energy usage in the same dashboard
Have visability on the total energy costs in 1 place (I purchase the petroleum in 200L bulk for day price)

WebfinityDesign · December 2, 2022, 4:11pm

I use butane bottles for heating, cooking and waterheating. I like to see something like that as well.

dietlman · December 21, 2022, 2:25pm

HI Masmi,

I am wondering how you setup the automation to increase input_number. I have an oiltank with a device measuring the fuel level once a day, (Oilfox) that is done at midnight. I have integrated Oilfox to HA and get the daily measurement in HA, actually I would like to see the value of daily consumed oill in my dashboard, but I don’t know how to do that.
I get a sensor called sensor.oilfox_of8130106250_filllevelquantity which shows the measurement done at midnight, but that will be overwritten on the very next day.

CChris · December 21, 2022, 2:37pm

Hi, I am also using the same Oilfox
right now, I am also just using the provided information + a template sensor to get the total amount of oil left in the tank.

For this, I’ve basically just substract the oil Used value from the total amount the tank can have…

Furthermore, to get a daily, weekly, monthly statistics, I would create utility meters…

here’s my template for the oil being used:

  - sensor:
    - name: oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused
      unique_id: 'oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused'
      unit_of_measurement: L
      device_class: volume
      state_class: measurement
      state: >
        {% set max_of7090001854_filllevel = 1000 | float(0) %}
        {% set current_of7090001854_filllevel = states('sensor.oilfox_of7090001854_filllevelquantity') | float(0) %}
        {% set of7090001854_fuelused = max_of7090001854_filllevel - current_of7090001854_filllevel | float(0) %}
        {{ '{:.2f}'.format(of7090001854_fuelused) }}
      availability: >
          {{ states('sensor.oilfox_of7090001854_filllevelquantity') not in ['unknown', 'unavailable', 'None'] }}

and here the utility meters that count the statistics over the given period

# Oilfox
  # Kachelofen
  oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_daily:
    unique_id: 'oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_daily'
    source: sensor.oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused
    cycle: daily

  oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_weekly:
    unique_id: 'oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_weekly'
    source: sensor.oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused
    cycle: weekly

  oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_monthly:
    unique_id: 'oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_monthly'
    source: sensor.oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused
    cycle: monthly

  oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_quarterly:
    unique_id: 'oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_quarterly'
    source: sensor.oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused
    cycle: quarterly

  oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_yearly:
    unique_id: 'oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused_yearly'
    source: sensor.oilfox_of7090001854_fuelused
    cycle: yearly

just replace the sensors ID with the one you have.
I think, that should work…

dietlman · December 21, 2022, 2:54pm

Hi Chris,

wow that sounds great, I will try that tonight and let you know!

Thanks!

dietlman · December 21, 2022, 7:24pm

@CChris thanks a lot, this works perfectly for my Oilfox! Great work!

Masmi · December 23, 2022, 2:06pm

With this setup you can indeed track your oil usage.
But it’s not part of the energy dashboard which is a feature I hope will be implemented someday.

CChris · December 23, 2022, 4:28pm

The problem is, that it doesn’t make much sense to use this sensor within the Energy-Dashboard, since it does only update once a day.

So it might be a good information for daily monitoring and others, but it does not provide much information for the hourly graphs at all (and probably don’t provide much information to help you optimizing your oil usage)

assembly · December 23, 2022, 4:50pm

Hi. I totally agree that a dashboard for oil would be great. Basically the ability to rename gas to oil and allowing liters as a unit of measurement would solve the problem.

I’ve build a sensor for my oil tank based on a esp8266 with an ultrasonic distance sensor which works great. It gathers measurement throughout the day and submits its value once a day at 2 o clock in the night.

It’s very easy to incorporate this in the energy dashboard (1 liter of oil≈ 10 kWh).
Sure it says “gas” in the title, which is a bit annoying and the hourly graph doesn’t make much sense (the sensor probably isnt accurate enough for an hourly graph anyway), but for tracking weekly, monthly and yearly consumption it works absolutely perfect!

Masmi · December 25, 2022, 8:56am

Nice solution with the uktraonic sensor! Using gas is indeed a workaround, but not for me. We still use natural gas for warm water.

I agree with Christopher that there is insufficient data to have meaningful insights on hourly basis. However on daily and particularly monthly basis it could really helpful. Keeping track of the total energy costs in 1 place, and comparing the long-term usage to see how energy saving measures like additional insulation are paying off.

vilord · December 31, 2022, 7:56pm

with a tank sensor there is little useful hourly energy statistics data, but with a flow meter (cheap) or an electric sensor on the oil burner/pump (a capacitor and a CT and a resistor or three with a wemos), you can know exactly when the pump is running, and most pumps have a fixed consumption rate.

so… back to the original question, yes +++ add oil usage please! one of these days perhaps i will work out the solar generation equivalent that we get from our solar thermal system… but that’s not quite as straightforward!

Istria1704 · January 1, 2023, 11:25am

Wouldn’t it be better to instead of adding oil, wood, pellets, heat, etc separately, to just add a generic “add energy type” option where you can choose your own energy type, unit and logo?

For example, I don’t have gas or oil. I’m connected to city heating, so hot water flows into my house into a heat exchanger that provides house heating and hot tap water. The amount of heat consumed is counted in GJ by the energy meter. So I would need an energy category “heat” with unit “GJ”.

goofy79 · January 8, 2023, 5:10pm

First of all, the Dashboard is great !
I think it makes sense to add Oil.
For my situation, to add oil to the dashboard will be fantastic !

BR

tobias1337 · July 1, 2023, 4:39pm

@Istria1704s post would be the best solution.

koehntopp · November 4, 2023, 8:12am

Daily consumption translated to kWh for Gas iin the energy dashboard would be awesome - anyone know how to do this from the oilfox fillLevelQuantity sensor? Should be doable with a template sensor…?

martinfitzg · November 4, 2023, 9:02am

For the heating system I have it’s using paraffin. I am monitoring the watts it’s drawing, so when it goes over a certain value I can tell when it’s “firing” Vs when it’s just on.

What I would like to do though is have a flow meter on the fuel pipe it’s self.

Has any one done this with esphome or would be aware of such item I could put on the fuel line to measure that flow and hook up to esphome

I’ve seen a mix of ultrasonic or more mechanical based devices for measuring flow in a pipe but nothing really suited to this, eg low flow rate or suitable to be emersed in oil.

Thanks in advance folks!

Psicrow925 · November 23, 2023, 11:56am

Huhu
That’s not quite right. Your OilFox provider can adjust the measurement interval. Every six hours is the lowest setting. This means there are four measuring points per day.

CChris · November 23, 2023, 12:10pm

hm… thanks
This can only be set by the provider itself?
Not within the app? Or if yes - where can this be found?

I don’t really use any provider - I just bought them (used)… so they do not come from any provider / supplier.

solomos · December 16, 2023, 8:59am

I’m doing the same with an ultrasonic sensor. Would you please give more information on “how do you gather measurements throughout the day and submits the values once a day”??

How comes ???

How did you do that? Energy dashboard doesn’t have volumes as you mentioned above.
Did you create a template sensor ??? Would you please also share the yaml for this ??