I’ve got a few power consuming devices. The heatpump, induction stove, oven, dishwasher and maybe the fridge. The heatpump and induction stove already have their own kWh meter in the fuse box. Minus the rest of the mentioned devices the average power use in the house is a steady 0.2/0.3 kWh. So no need to monitor the rest of the 12 groups. But I do want to monitor the oven, dishwasher and fridge, since they have large peaks.
Finally getting to the question now:
I have several kWh meters with modbus in the fuse box. To monitor the 3 other devices I could add a small fusebox in the kitchen and add 3 kWh meters for the devices. OR I could get 3 smart plugs that can monitor power usage.
Now, would be the better choice?
3 wifi plugs are the easy approach
but are the precise? I would imagine the MID kWh meter are more precise. But is it necessary?
I would imagine modbus is more stable than wifi in this case. The modbus gateway is connected via UTP
Exercise I went through few weeks ago
For smaller consumption devices (coffee machine, electric cattle) I went for plugs. For more energy consuming devices (microwave, washing machine, dishwasher) I went for Shelly 1PM modules. More work to put them under the socket, but can handle much higher load (3.5kW instead of 2.5kW).
For stove and owen I took a bit strange approach, as in my case it would be very time consuming and cumbersome to install any real power meter. So, as I’m measuring now almost every device (physically or using powecalc integration virtual sensors) I’m assuming that these 2 devices are consuming remainig power (e.g total - all know devices). Not scientificaly accurate, but giving relatively good indication of what is going on…
Regarding accuracy… well I can’t really tell. what I can see is that all of my measured and assumend consumtion aligns with what is oficially measured with 95% accuracy, so not bad, especially that for me personally most important is to identify the biggest energy hogs rather than knowing details with huge precision.
Hey @mirekmal , right. I think that’s a good answer for me to relativize the situation. Main goal is to get insights on the general knowledge on energy hogs. I.o. I don’t need to send invoices for usage of the oven So I will look for a good balance in ease of applying and installing against a budget. Since preciseness is less of a goal after the main meter. Thanks!
