What is the best way to monitor the power consumption of multiple appliances using a GX device?

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Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) asked Mar 26, '24

What is the best way to monitor the power consumption of multiple appliances using a GX device?

Hi Community :)

I have a medium sized power consumer that is trying to isolate which of their appliances is consuming the most energy, their power bill has gone up 50% in the last quarter and they think something is wrong with their loads.

The large loads are mostly refrigerators that plug in to standard 10A 230V wall sockets. There is one large cool room that would need a CT clamp, but I would prefer the rest are 'wall wart' style.

I'd say 10 different readings will be enough to isolate majority of the largest consumers.

Does anyone have a suggestion for which energy monitoring products work in that situation and play nicely with the rest of the Victron ecosystem (GX device, VRM, and potentially NodeRED?)

Individual 'smart switching' is not necessary, but I expect a lot of products would have this feature.

There is wifi, and I presume that is how these things would communicate.

Also ideally a product that is available in Australian market, but for the sake of general interest, I'm also interested in any products in different markets that you've had success with.

monitoring

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Modifications Space

Node Red Space

Answer 1 · 2024-03-26T05:03:28Z

atebee answered · Mar 26 at 05:03 AM

Shelly devices seem like a natural choice, they certainly have integration options for NodeRed (although Home Assistant has great out-of-box support).

They have devices with inline power monitoring and via a CT. There is a 'wall wart' device for the UK market, not sure about Australian. That said you can easily use a Shelly PM Mini Gen3 to make up a smart extension lead, basically put the device inline between a plug and extension outlet on a short (1m) cable, device itself in some sort of small plastic housing (WISKA box in UK terminology).

For quick and dirty power monitoring the smartphone app is sufficient if you didn't want to go down a full integration project route.

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Alexandra ♦ commented · Mar 26 at 10:26 AM

We have found the mqtt on the newer Shelly to be not cooperative.

The shelly 1pm were easier to integrate.

Tasmota is always an option. Not tried the energy data yet.

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Answer 2 · 2024-03-26T11:32:12Z

sean answered · Mar 26 at 11:32 AM

https://iotawatt.com/

https://blog.networkprofile.org/power-monitoring-setup-iotawatt-grafana/

screenshot-2022-03-06-213055-pvkhjr-1.png (778.1 KiB)

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Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) ♦♦ commented · Mar 26 at 11:35 AM

very nice!

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Answer 3 · 2024-03-27T08:22:18Z

kerbal answered · Mar 27 at 08:22 AM

I use Home Assistant to monitor my pv and loads. HA is feeded via MQTT from the GX-Device.

In HA you have a energy dashboard, which you can feed with your sensors. Its quite simple.

You can also configure individual devices and view their consumption in the Energy Dashboard.

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Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) ♦♦ commented · Mar 28 at 01:08 AM

Looks very nice, are you using any sensors other than the Victron ones?

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Answer 4 · 2024-03-28T08:29:21Z

kerbal answered · Mar 28 at 08:29 AM

I also use sensors outside the victron world. I have for example several smart wall sockets (connected via zigbee - wlan is also possible) which can track energy consumption. These could bei displayed in the energy dashboard.

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