How to use Utility Meter Tariffs to conditionally measure things

[tom_l]

The Utility Meter integration is used to measure accumulating values like energy, gas, water, heating and more.

You can apply a cycle to make it reset whenever you want. So, for example, you can make a daily energy meter from a sensor that always increases.

You can also use the tariffs option to create multiple conditional sensors from the one utility meter.

Every tariff you define gets its own sensor and you can automate when that sensor starts accumulating.

This is a powerful tool allowing you to track things like peak and off-peak energy use, or water used when a particular device is on. Or which member of your house uses the most energy on a particular day for washing.

For example, lets say you have a binary sensor that tells you if your energy is being charged at peak or offpeak rates, binary_sensor.peak_rate and you would like to track both off-peak and peak daily energy use separately, but you only have the one energy import sensor that never resets, sensor.energy_import.

1) Define a daily cycle utility meter with two tariffs:

configuration.yaml, or via the Helpers UI

utility_meter:
  energy_from_grid_daily:
    source: sensor.energy_import
    cycle: daily
    tariffs:
      - peak
      - offpeak

This will create two sensors, sensor.energy_from_grid_daily_peak and sensor.energy_from_grid_daily_offpeak.

It will also create a select entity to allow you to choose between the two sensors, select.energy_from_grid_daily. This select entity will have the two options, peak and offpeak. Whichever option is chosen starts the associated sensor accumulating.

2) Write an automation to choose which sensor gets to accumulate energy based on your binary sensor state:

automations.yaml, or using the UI automation editor

- id: 841ae395-4646-4c95-8991-14cdd7e9c834
  alias: 'Set Peak or Off-peak Tarrif'
  trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id: binary_sensor.peak_rate
      not_to:
        - unknown
        - unavailable
  action:
    - if:
        - condition: state
          entity_id: binary_sensor.peak_rate
          state: 'on'
      then:
        - service: select.select_option
          target:
            entity_id:
              - select.energy_from_grid_daily
            data:
              option: 'peak'
      else:
        - service: select.select_option
          target:
            entity_id:
              - select.energy_from_grid_daily
            data:
              option: 'offpeak'

A shorter way to do this with templates:

  action:
    - service: select.select_option
      target:
        entity_id:
          - select.energy_from_grid_daily
        data:
          option: >
            {{ 'peak' if is_state('binary_sensor.peak_rate','on') else 'offpeak }}

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