I will re-arrange my central panel soon to re-balance the internal electrical loads across the 3 Phases of the input electric power (EU mains 230/400 VAC) in my house.
Since this is a rare occasion (re-wiring will be done by a certified electrical engineer):
What kind of “smart” hardware should I consider adding to the main panel?
I have discussed with @george.erhan to add an energy meter (3P) that will connect to my KNX Bus and then I will integrate the data into openHAB2. I will basically monitor the electrical installation using the measurements of this device.
Any other cool ideas that I should consider for this re-wiring opportunity?
Bonus rule
Ps: I will write an OH2 rule that sends an email complaint to the national energy regulator whenever the service provider causes disruptions due to unplanned maintenance and/or when the input voltage levels drop too low (I have these problems in my region…)
Well, if you are anyway doing the full reorganisation, wouldn’t you want to instead put a device that also reports the power of each output? It can be very handy in rules, especially if you have many outputs. I’m currently adding 3 phase/16A outputs to my car today, and will reach 36 measured lines by this.
This way, I can have reports of just about everything - “The owen/micro/dishwasher/tumbler/washing machine is ready”, as well as give warnings such as “the stove is on” when leaving the house (or kitchen). I have also added rules that powers off certain consumers (such as under floor heating in the kitchen and bathroom), if the load of one phase gets too high (higher than the mains fuses).
It is also very good for chasing unnecessary consumers…
You mean: a smart power meter installed in the main/sub panel for each internal single phase (230VAC) circuit?
I have about 30 internal circuits. 15 for outlets and 15 for lights.
The lights are controlled by KNX Actors but these actors don’t measure power consumption (anyway… these are low consumers since most lights are LED based).
The outlets are grouped per room in their own circuits (there is an auto-fuse in the subpanel)
Using a meter for each outlet circuit sounds like an overkill… I see the benefit but I don’t know about the cost.
Of course, there are the big consumers in the house also (mainly 3Phase): Air Conditioning Chiller, Central Boiler, De-Icing, etc. Maybe adding another power meter for each of those makes sense.
For the medium consumers (Oven, Fridge, Washing Machine, etc) I already use smart power strips at the appliance level (after the wall switch) and I monitor at each outlet level the consumption of each device.
No, one meter that does lots of measurements. Such as the Brultech GEM, that I’m using.
It connects over ethernet or wifi, and measures 32 lines per box.
Since I just tripped the 32, I had to get a second box…
Maybe it is more expensive than your KNX box, though.
It is much better than the appliance meters in all respects!
No, it will only measure power/voltage/currents/temp/water. No control!
If you already have the 3 phase power meter, you can keep it if you like, but you can also use three GEM channels for “master input”.
You can also use mathematical sum of all the internal lines, but that will not be as precise, but it may be good enough.
I use my first three channels for ‘master input’.
First of all - 3-phase power directly into your house electrical panel? Lucky!! We only get 2 here in the US (110/220 VAC)
Nice graphs - I definitely need to start playing with Grafana…
For the spikes on phase 2, they look like typical inrush current spikes (charging up capacitors, starting up the motors in your HVAC/fridge compressor, fans, etc). Just start turning off your phase 2 loads one-by-one until the spikes disappear, and you’ll figure out which one is causing them. Though, there’s not much you can really do to avoid them, if the device isn’t current-limited already…
This is awesome…
I have a SMA Energy Meter, (there is a binding for it, as far as I know), which I´ll connect as well. Hope to do something simular, like yours.
