So, I’m cursed with the awful, antiquated, difficult to work with US split phase system with it’s terrible service panels. Anyone know of any off the shelf energy monitoring kits that support monitoring an entire fully loaded service panel for US split phase? I’ve found a few 30+ channel units from the usual Chinese sources, but they’re not designed for split phase US power. Oh, and when I’m talking about monitoring an entire panel, I mean monitoring the two main phases, along with ALL branch circuits, on a single unit. A fully loaded 200A 40 space panel could be more than 40 branch circuits depending on the circuit layout.
I figure if someone sells one, it’s likely going to be cheaper and save me a ton of time over designing my own. I’ll design my own if I have to though, particularly if there’s any community interest in such. Maybe a 24 channel version for 125A 20 space panels and a 48 channel version for 200A 30 and 40 space panels?
You can combine multiple breakers into one channel so that the whole panel fits into the currently available16+2 channels products in the market. Not ideal but a working solution.
I just purchased a bunch of 2 clamp units from AliExpress and mounted them on a rail. They already come with a rail mount. Each unit will handle 2 circuits (80A) For double breakers I just use a single clamp and create a helper in HA that doubles the Energy/Power. I printed a clip that holds a couple of wago clips to power the whole group. A 12" rail holds 5 units (10 circuits)
You would need a larger Amp unit for your mains power.
I’m curious what you ended up doing? I see the Emporia Vue 3 is $200 per 16 circuits with a 200A main feeder monitor, and they say “If you have more than 16 breakers you want to monitor (in one panel or multiple), just add another Vue Home Energy Monitor”. So that’d be $400 for 32 circuits or $600 for 48 circuits. On the negative side, integration seems less-than-ideal per Emporia Vue 3 as it’s a proprietary cloud API. Likely fine, but less-than-ideal.
To measure a 200A feeder with Shelly products, I think you’d have to use their CT 400A current clamp with Shelly Pro 3EM-400 for $250. That’s intended for 3-phase, but I suppose there’s no reason it couldn’t measure split-phase? What I don’t know is whether their apps and reporting would work properly by default, especially due to the phase angle difference.
As for measuring the circuits with Shelly products, I don’t think their products are a good fit for typical US panelboards. I suppose you could skip using a panelboard. Many US industrial facilities use 120V and 480V DIN-rail mount circuit breakers in UL 508A custom electrical panels. But getting 30 single-phase circuits in an industrial control panel versus an equivalent residential panelboard is at least double the price in my experience. Also I have no idea whether the products for industrial control panels meet the code requirements for residential applications. Sure it would definitely work, but your local electrical inspector would have to sign off on it too.
