Understanding the ‘how much’ and ‘when’ of your electricity use is an important part of deciding on what to invest in, how to reduce your electricity bills, and how to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions.
A good starting point is to understand the energy consumption of various appliances. This is a function of both the power consumption and the time the appliance is used for. As an example, many people think turning off lights is important. While this is sort of true, modern LED lights consume very little power. So a 10W LED light left on for 24 hours will consume (10*24/1000) 0.24kWh. A 2400 Watt blow heater or kettle will consume the same amount of energy in 6 minutes. But the kettle will probably only be on for 3-4 minutes and the blow heater might be on for hours.
So it is useful to understand the power rating of various appliances as well as how long they typically run for in a day or week. For most households (without an electric vehicle) most of your electricity use (and hence the most effective way to save money) will be from hot water heating and space heating.
The next step is to understand when you use electricity. This matters if you have solar PV or if you are on a time of use tariff (see separate page on Tasmanian residential tariffs). If you are on the Tasmanian tariffs 31/41 and don’t have solar PV the when doesn’t matter.
Energy monitoring allows you to see how much electricity you are using and when. On this page we describe three approaches, getting data from your meter, accessing meter data via the aurora+ app and monitoring via the Solar Analytics or Monocle app.
Because electricity use is highly seasonal (maximising heating in winter in Tasmania and cooling in northern Australia) it is important to have a whole year of consumption data on which to base your decisions.
If you have solar, a complication in measuring electricity use is that your electricity meter only measures energy to and from the grid. Most solar inverters will record how much solar electricity has been generated but it is necessary to compare these two amounts to understand self-consumption (ie the solar electricity you generate and use at the same time in your house). This is not easy.
The best solution is to install what are called CT (current transformer) clamps on various circuits as per the diagram below. This has to be done in the switchboard by a licenced electrician. This is best done at the same time you are having other electrical work done. It is typically done when solar is installed but it can also be done to collect data before you make a decision on installing solar.
Meter data shows all your consumption.¹
Import/export measured by meter. Solar generation measured by inverter.²
Monitoring with CT clamps.³
¹ All energy flows in one direction. Meter data records all consumption but not possible to access in real-time.
² Inverter records generation, meter records purchase from, or export to, grid, but no visibility of self-consumption.
³ Monitoring allows real-time viewing of generation, purchase, export and self-consumption. In principle only two CT clamps are needed; Consumption = Generation + Purchase (export to grid is negative P), P = C – G, G = C – P.
If your electricity meter is a smart meter (aka electronic meter or advanced meter) it will record your electricity use by time as well as amount. As described above, it is best to have a full year of data.
If you are an Aurora Energy customer and have had a smart meter for at least a year you can request the meter data from Aurora via any of their contact mechanisms. Further analysis of this data does require a fair bit of spreadsheet expertise.
Aurora will advise you which tariff you would be better off on based on the meter data, either via their website or via the contact details above. Information on the best tariff for you may already on your Aurora bill.
If you are not an Aurora customer you may be able to get access to meter data from another provider under the Consumer Data Right for the energy sector.
This phone app is available at no extra charge to customers of Aurora Energy. It displays import and export of energy based on meter data. But because the data comes from the national repository of meter data (rather than direct from the meter) it is not real-time data.
The advantages are:
The disadvantages are:
Solar Analytics provides stand-alone monitoring services. If you purchase Solar Analytics as a stand-alone product you will need to have hardware installed by an electrician and pay an annual fee.
The company that produces the Catch Power products has recently bought Solar Analytics. If you purchase the Catch Solar Relay this will come with free monitoring via their Monocle app.
Solar Analytics app showing full day of data.
Aurora+ app shows hourly data only and for less than 24 hours, requiring scrolling.¹
¹ If you view aurora+ on a desktop computer or tablet, you can view a wider range (12-hrs) of the daily consumption.
