NSW EV Fleet Charging Infrastructure Prequalification Scheme
The New South Wales (NSW) government has announced the launch of the Electric Vehicle (EV) Fleet Charging Infrastructure Prequalification Scheme, inviting applications from companies seeking to be prequalified to deliver EV charging infrastructure. The scheme, which will be open for an initial term of three years, is part of the government’s commitment to transitioning its fleet of passenger vehicles to electric by 2030. Achieving this target will require EV charging infrastructure to be set up at vehicle base locations such as government sites and depots.
The scheme is open to companies with experience in delivering EV charging infrastructure, including EV chargers, load management controllers, and other hardware. Applicants must have a current Supplier Hub profile on the buy.nsw website and must accept the scheme’s conditions and satisfy all requirements as a condition of prequalification. Prequalification under the scheme does not guarantee work or receipt of opportunities to make submissions, and engagements or work of any kind or quantity will not be offered.
The NSW government has set out goals to have 50% of newly purchased or leased passenger vehicles to be electric by 2026, and 100% of newly purchased or leased passenger vehicles to be electric by 2030. This is part of the government’s broader NSW Electric Vehicle Strategy, which aims to accelerate the uptake of EVs in the state. The prequalification scheme is an important step in achieving these targets and presents an exciting opportunity for businesses offering EV charging solutions.
Companies interested in applying for prequalification under the scheme can find more information on the buy.nsw website. Enquiries can be directed to the scheme manager via email at NSWGFleetElectrification@treasury.nsw.gov.au or by phone on 1800-679-289.
Integrate Smappee & Home Connect for Household Savings
Fancy saving up to 30% on your energy bill without much effort at all? By integrating Smappee and Home Connect, you can use off-peak energy or solar energy in a much smarter way – and these two systems can do the hard work for you. Here’s how it all works.
What is Home Connect?
Home Connect is an app that lets you easily control a wide range of connected appliances in your home, including products from Bosch, Siemens and Gaggenau. These smart home appliances include fridges, freezers, coffee machines, hobs, dishwashers, washers, dryers and more.
What is Smappee?
Smappee offers smart energy monitoring and management solutions. In this case we’re talking about Smappee Infinity, which can be used for easy smart energy control and dynamic load balancing in your home.
How do Home Connect and Smappee integrate?
This is somewhat up to you and what you have connected in your home, but integration can be set up for connected washers, dryers, washer-dryer combos and dishwashers. Once you have your Smappee app and Home Connect app connected, you’ll be able to create settings that drive your appliances in a more energy-efficient way. Here are some examples.
Example one:Sweet breakfast savings
You could choose to schedule your smart dishwasher to run between 10pm and 6am to optimise for off-peak energy. The integrated system will run the dishwasher in this timeframe with the lowest available energy tariff, so you’ll wake up to sparkling coffee mugs and lower energy costs.
Example two: Sun-powered clean clothes
You could also choose to schedule your smart washer-dryer to run between, say, 9am and 3pm while you’re at work. The integrated system can trigger the washer-dryer when maximum solar use is available to minimise energy usage and costs, and you can arrive home to clean, dry clothes.
Because Smappee Infinity provides transparent energy data on an appliance level, you can see exactly how much you’re saving in real time via the Smappee app. Not only is it satisfying to see how much energy and money you’re saving over each billing period, but nasty surprises can also become a thing of the past when it comes to energy bills. More appliances are expected to be added to the Home Connect network as time goes on, so the potential for energy and cost savings is set to grow even further.
What else can be done with Smappee Infinity?
Smappee Infinity is exciting because you can build on it in a way that suits your lifestyle and home. You could add electric vehicle (EV) charging to power your car via maximum solar energy and minimum energy tariffs. You could install a home battery, and program its use in the Smappee app to further minimise your household energy bills. You could potentially even be paid for the use of your battery during peak demand periods via a virtual power plant (VPP) program. There are some really exciting possibilities with Smappee, and these are only set to grow because the system is designed to be modular and future-proof.
How do you get Smappee Infinity installed?
We’d love to help you create a connected home system that suits the way you live, minimises your energy costs and unlocks these exciting technologies. Contact us to get started, wherever you live in Australia.
Amber Electric Wholesale Spot Price Offer Provides Variable Pricing Based On Supply and Demand
We love this great Savings Hack using Wholesale Electricity Retailers!
If you’re anything like the team here at Vista Power Technologies, then you love a good cost savings hack.
This one utilising wholesale electricity retailers is great as it can massively reduce your power bills. It also promotes the use of renewable energy, incentivising power use when there’s more renewables available on the grid.
All this and you don’t even need solar panels installed to benefit.
A Lot Has Changed Since the Day of Analogue Power Meters & Traditional Electricity Retailers
The old spinning disc meters make time of use metering impossible as they need to be physically checked by the retailer. Only showing usage between these checks.
Smart meters now make it possible for retailers to identify exactly when you’re using or producing electricity.
This allows for homes and businesses to switch to time of use tariffs. Offering lower network charges overnight and on weekends. When there is less load on the grid. Also known as off-peak tariffs.
Off-peak power is perfect for running your pool pump, charging your electric vehicle, heating water, etc. When coupled with wholesale electricity rates there are some great opportunities for savings
Network Tariffs & the Electricity Price… There’s a Difference
Just to clarify network tariffs are what the network operator charges for the use of the electricity network. This is separate to the actual market price of electricity but is still typically charged on a per kWh basis.
If you’re paying a total of 20 cents per kWh on your current plan, it’s likely made up of roughly 12 cents for network tariffs and about 8 cents for electricity (as an example).
The Price for Electricity Changes Constantly
What has not changed and what you may not be aware of, is that the market price of electricity constantly changes throughout the day.
It all depends on how it is being produced and how much demand there is on the grid for electricity. You can easily follow the national energy market (NEM) price for electricity on the NEM dashboard found on the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) website.
At the time of writing this article, the price for electricity in Victoria is $10.79/MWh or 1 cent per kWh
For example, on a hot cloudy day with low winds the price can go high because homes and businesses are typically running air conditioning and refrigeration. These loads consume a lot of energy but there is not a lot of renewables available on the grid to support this.
On the flip side, when we have a sunny and windy day that is not too hot, the price can go super low. Sometimes it even goes negative, because there is so much cheap electricity available and not enough load on the grid to use it.
That’s right, at times like this, you can actually get paid to use electricity.
How to Hack your Power Bills with Wholesale Electricity Retailers
So, here is the hack we were talking about earlier. There are now electricity retailers offering the market spot price directly to their customers and instead of charging a mark-up on the power you use they instead charge a small fixed monthly fee.
If you’re lucky enough to be living in South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales or South East Queensland, then you can take advantage of this great type of retail offer currently available from two retailers including Amber Electric and Power Club.
We’ve personally tried Amber Electric out at home here in Melbourne’s East and have consistently seen very low prices through summer. Usually sitting around 14 cents per kilowatt hour. The price can sometimes spike higher in the evening when solar production drops off and prices around 50 cents can be seen for a couple of hours whilst people are cooling their home after work or cooking with the electric oven. This can make having a solar battery very beneficial, as you can use your stored power while the price is at its highest in the evening.
Example Amber Electric Bill from June 2020 averaging 16 cents / kWh including all tariffs and fees
One Risk to Keep in Mind
Whilst the rates are usually super low for the majority of the time. There is one risk associated with this type of plan. Every now and then there can be what is called a demand event. This happens when demand exceeds the capacity of the grid and expensive emergency measures have to be applied. When this happens the price can go super high, as in $15 per kWh high.
These events usually only happen a couple of times a year and typically only for an hour or less at a time.
What we like about the Amber Electric plan is that they send you an alert if this is going to occur. So you can choose to turn off any power-hungry appliances until the price returns to normal.
Another thing to consider is that traditional retailers also have to account for this and these spikes are worked into the fixed rates they offer. At least with a wholesale electricity retailer you have the option to not use power at these times.
Lower Solar Feed In Rates
Another thing to keep in mind is that the solar feed in tariff (FiT) is typically lower than the roughly 10 cents you might get from a fixed rate retailer. This is because you get paid exactly what the market rate is at the time you feed in to the grid.
This also means when the market price goes negative it will actually cost you to export to the grid.
So, for those households and businesses that have a large solar panel system on their roof. Exporting loads of power to the grid. This type of plan may not be for you.
Potential Savings of more than 20% Compared to Traditional Retail Agreements
To put it simply, by switching to a spot price retail agreement you can potentially save over 20% off your existing electricity costs. Even more by changing when you operate certain appliances, maximising savings.
Traditional retailers need to estimate an average cost of electricity. Allowing for a buffer. Then putting a mark-up on that. This means consumers are typically charged significantly higher than the market price.
By switching to wholesale rates all of those extra buffers and allowances are wiped off. So by making the switch you can expect some significant overall savings. Even if you don’t make any changes to the way you use electricity.
By adding some smart control or even manually managing certain appliances when the cost is higher you can optimise these savings.
Get a $40 Sign Up Credit and Jump the Waiting List
If you’re interested in trying this great savings hack out for yourself, you can sign up to Amber Electric by using our referral link.
This link will give you a $40 sign up credit and allow you to jump the wait list.
What’s great is there are no lock-in contracts with Amber. If you decide their wholesale rate plan isn’t right for you just switch back to your old retailer.
Conclusion
As mentioned, there are some risks with this type of plan. It’s important to consider whether wholesale electricity retailers are right for your situation. What can be said with certainty, there is an opportunity to create some significant savings under the right circumstances. If you’re looking to lower your electricity costs wholesale electricity retailers are definitely worth a try.
By installing energy monitoring in your home you can identify high energy appliances & opportunities to reduce costs
Many people use a set and forget approach to their rooftop solar system but this is a risky and potentially expensive approach. Imagine receiving your power bill only to discover that your system hasn’t been working properly for the past 2 months and you’ve been unknowingly running your house on expensive electricity from the grid. This is where having a good energy or solar monitoring system really comes into its own. The old adage ‘knowledge is power’ was never truer than when managing your rooftop solar and home energy use.
Most solar installers offer a basic feed from the solar inverter, often at extra cost, which gives you information about your solar production. It won’t, however, give you any information about your energy consumption patterns and compare this with your solar production. This is not really surprising considering the core business of inverter manufacturers is not energy monitoring software.
If you really want to maximise your savings by knowing what’s going on with your rooftop solar and your energy usage then you need to consider a quality, third party home energy monitor.
Optimising your Rooftop Solar
With the loss of generous feed-in tariffs a few years back, you need to be using as much of your solar as you can in your home (self-consumption), minimising the use of expensive grid electricity. A complete smart energy management solution will allow you to optimise your solar by simultaneously monitoring solar generation and controlling appliances to maximise self-consumption and minimise cost.
Home Energy Monitoring Versus Smart Home Energy Management
There are many solar or energy monitoring solutions available on the market however not all systems are created equal. Inverter based systems will tell you how many kilowatts your solar system is generating, how much grid electricity you are using and how many kilowatts of solar you are exporting to the grid.
To get the full picture, and to really take control of your energy use, you’ll want something more powerful. If you can see how the power consumption of individual appliances in your home and your solar generation work together, then you’re getting a complete picture. Armed with this information you can really start to take control. This is where Smappee Infinity comes in.
The Power of Individual Appliance Monitoring
One of the things that sets Smappee Infinity apart from its competitors is how it can ‘reach’ into your home, monitoring individual appliances, and balancing your consumption with your solar generation, so that any excess solar power goes direct to your smart appliances. With world-leading European technology, the Smappee smart energy management system can monitor and manage the energy use of individual appliances. It can even identify the ‘footprint’ of certain home appliances using its unique NILM technology.
The Smappee mobile app and Smappee dashboard are easy to use and give you a clear view of all your energy use whether you’re at home, working or on holiday. You can immediately see what appliances are guzzling energy and what your level of ‘always on’ or standby power is. You can even set up rules to turn things on or off depending on the amount of solar being generated, such as automatically turning on the pool pump when the solar generation is high or turning the air-conditioning down automatically when solar generation drops.
Smappee is quick and easy to install by a qualified electrician. It’s clever, modular nature means it will grow with your needs – want to add batteries or an electric vehicle? Smappee will manage the energy flows across these and ensure that it is optimised against your solar generation. As more and more smart appliances coming on to the market, Smappee future-proofs your home and adds value.
The Smappee Infinity complete smart home energy management system ultimately gives you control and peace of mind.
For more information on how Smappee can help you optimise your solar and energy use, check out the Smappee Infinity overview here or feel free get in touch.
Green Building Council Australia (GBCA) Future Homes Partnerships
Vista Power Technologies is officially here to help when it comes to developing Australia’s smart, sustainable, and connected new homes.
As of July 2020, we have proudly joined the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) as a Future Homes Associate Partner.
What does this mean? It means we will be working closely with the GBCA as they set the new standard for sustainable, comfortable, and healthy homes in Australia through their Future Homes program.
Why Future Homes?
It’s expected that over half of the buildings that will exist in 2050 will be built after 2019, so Australia has an incredible opportunity to develop new standards in green living. Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) is the not-for-profit industry association that developed the Green Star rating system. GBCA’s vision is to create healthy, resilient and positive places and it brings together over 550 industry companies, investors, and developers as well as local, state, and federal governments to lead the sustainable transformation of the built environment.
GBCA’s Future Homes program is setting a standard for newly built Australian homes that will be:
Comfortable and healthy to live in, created with products that are better for us.
Resilient to potential future climate change, including water efficiency and design that takes future changes like fires, floods, and heat stress into consideration.
Efficient and powered by renewables, to create a net zero energy home to the advantage of residents and the wider community.
How we are getting involved
GBCA is consulting with the wider industry to develop this future-proof standard, including Vista Power Technologies. We will be providing feedback on the possibilities and benefits associated with real-time energy monitoring and smart control of loads and appliances in households. We will also be developing a standard solution for households using the Smappee Infinity system, which opens up the options for IoT-connected (Internet of Things) devices and can be used for live sub-metering.
VPT Managing Director Sam Frost says that Future Homes presents an exciting opportunity to optimise the way we design and plan our homes. “It has become extremely obvious over the last few decades that we need to improve the way we consume natural resources and interact with energy to reduce our negative impact on the environment. We need to ensure our planet remains liveable for our future generations, including the wildlife we share it with. We need to actively implement strategies to slow and even reverse the damage that has been done to our planet.”
“The Future Homes program is one way we can work to minimise our day to day impact on the environment by using smart and proven technologies to reduce emissions whilst maintaining a comfortable home environment. By implementing certain ‘Green’ technologies we can also create opportunities to save money by reducing energy costs.”
So how does smart energy monitoring fit into Australia’s future homes?
In a big, big way! Home energy monitoring systems (HEMS) will be key in reaching the net zero energy vision for new homes. They can help to identify high-use appliances, provide detailed insights, and control of home energy usage, and cut power bills in a time where electricity costs continue to increase.
Home energy monitoring can also open up an exciting world of possibilities for connected and IoT devices; allowing control over lighting, air conditioning, entertainment systems, smart speakers, connected appliances, electric vehicle charging and more.
The Telsyte Australian IoT@Home Market Study 2019 found over half of Australia’s households already had at least one IoT home product installed by the end of 2018. It is also expected that each Aussie household will have more than 37 connected devices by 2023, with around half of those devices IoT-connected.
Telsyte’s survey showed that almost a third of Australians want to modernise their home to make it smarter.
As Sam says, “What I think we will see in the future is a standard of homes that provide a high level of comfort and liveability, whilst requiring minimal energy from fossil fuels, along with utility bills that are a fraction of what they cost today.”
How you can create your own smart home
Smart home energy monitoring is not just for brand new homes, apartments and townhouses – it’s also incredibly easy to have your electrician install a system in your current home. The Smappee Home Energy Monitor or Smappee Infinity System is an ideal entry-level option to monitor real-time energy consumption, while the Smappee Infinity system opens up even greater options for connectivity and energy management. The Smappee Switch can be added to either solution to provide easy and remote appliance control, as well as a number of additional options such as gas and water monitoring. Simply get in touch to tailor a solution to suit your needs.
Learn more
If you’re looking for more information about GBCA’s exciting Future Homes initiative, you can follow this link for more details?
Smappee EV Base Commercial EV Chargers with Automatic Load Balancing
Australia, let’s get smarter about using solar and off-peak power to minimise the costs of EV charging
Anyone who owns or is interested in electric vehicles (EVs) probably knows that the running costs can be significantly lower than vehicles running on petrol, diesel or LPG. Servicing requirements for electric motors can also be minimal compared to internal combustion engines, which translates to further cost savings for owners. That being said, there are still big opportunities – and exciting ones at that – for EV owners to further save with smart charging, both in charging costs as well as in an environmental sense.
First, let’s consider Australia’s changing power environment
Liquid fuels have served a purpose as an easily transportable source of energy for many years. They allowed for significant growth during the industrial revolution and made many industries that we rely on today possible. The impact to the environment, though, has been less than desirable, and the practice of using fossil fuels as a primary source of energy in industries is simply not sustainable.
With improvements in battery technology we’re now seeing a shift where renewable energy can be stored and used on demand, along with the ability to use other less damaging forms of fossil fuel such as coal to indirectly power automobiles. With the progress of renewable energy production including wind, solar and tidal power being implemented across the world, our reliance on coal is also reducing and this will continue over time.
Where EVs come into the picture
Australian households and businesses are increasingly starting to look to electric vehicles as an effective way of reducing reliance on damaging fossil fuels. It’s been calculated that the carbon emissions of an EV in Australia could be around 18% lower than those of a fossil fuelled car when using average grid electricity. When we add in the factors of renewable energy and battery technologies, these can lead to even lower emissions. Just ask New Zealand, whose EV emissions could be 62% lower than those of fossil fuelled cars because so many of the country’s energy sources are renewable.
Smart use of renewable energy can also have serious benefits for the hip pocket
Where EV owners are producing the renewable energy themselves, for example using solar panels, each owner stands to significantly save on their charging costs. In addition – owners can use their smart charging system to only charge at off-peak (and therefore low-cost) times from the grid, further slashing their charging costs. Smart EV charging simply makes sense!
Smappee Infinity provides a revolutionary solution when it comes to smart EV charging
By installing a Smappee Infinity system, users can optimise the use of self-produced solar power and also prioritise using lower-cost off-peak power, to maximise the already-significant savings that can come with owning and operating an EV. Here’s how.
Direct integration with several popular EV chargers
Smappee offers flexibility for smart EV charging. By integrating directly with Smappee’s new EV Base or EV Wall chargers, or supported third-party chargers, the Infinity system together with the Genius gateway can dynamically change the charging output to maintain a manageable rate of charge.
Current third-party EV chargers that integrate directly with the Smappee Infinity system are as follows:
Planning to use surplus solar power to charge your vehicle? Using its smart metering technology, the Infinity system can monitor the level of solar power exported to the grid and vary the EV charger output to only use excess energy.
Prioritised use of off-peak (and low cost) electricity when solar power is unavailable
Wake up to an ideally charged vehicle and a lower bill! Where the site operates on time-of-use electricity tariffs, the Infinity system can review the current and future electricity rates and prioritise the use of off-peak power to complete charging to a user defined level, e.g. 100km by 7:30am.
Demand management to protect site or circuit overload
The Smappee smart EV charging feature also includes demand management capabilities. This means that it will limit the amount of power the EV charger can draw to ensure the site does not exceed its overload limit. This is ideal in the case of running an EV charger at the same time as other electrical appliances and lighting, or where multiple EV chargers are installed with a combined maximum load which is greater than what the supply (main circuit breaker) can support.
Direct switching of EV chargers and other appliances
In addition to Smappee’s smart EV charging feature allowing for dynamic load control, users can also directly switch power to their charging station or other household appliances. This is possible with the Output Module used to control switching of whole circuits, or the Switch (16A) which plugs in to the power point and provides both control and monitoring capabilities.
Using this method will still allow users to automate the use of excess solar for charging and other purposes, however, it would not have the capability to vary the load on an EV charger.
So why choose Smappee Infinity for smart EV charging?
Understanding your energy
Not only can you keep track of exactly how much power your EV is using and the associated costs, but you’ll also be able to gain many other insights into energy usage. The Smappee Infinity system can monitor all of your electrical loads providing a detailed consumption, production, and cost analysis, allowing you to fully understand how your home or business is interacting with energy.
Controlling your EV charger & other circuits or appliances to maximise savings & revenue
You can open up a world of management and integration possibilities. The Infinity system is capable of controlling individual appliances with the Switch and whole circuits with the Output Module. Control can be managed manually or automatically via the smartphone app, or with third-party integrations including IFTTT, Home Assistant, and custom MQTT (IoT) based applications.
For example, you could choose to only run your water heater with export solar during the day and off-peak power overnight through an in-app automation. Or using IFTTT and a Sensibo smart A/C controller, you could reduce the temperature in your home when solar export is above a certain level. Tech savvy individuals could also create their own control conditions using the Home Assistant application, or develop their own application installed on a home PC or Raspberry Pi.
Saving on energy costs and maximising revenue from export to the grid
By utilising the above smart control capabilities you could significantly maximise your cost savings associated with installing a solar system or EV charger. And by utilising self-produced solar power production, you can minimise the amount of electricity being exported to the grid at the low feed-in tariffs currently offered by most traditional electricity retailers.
In addition to cost savings, there’s also the possibility to increase revenue on electricity exported to the grid. By signing up to an electricity retailer offering wholesale rates you could choose to reduce consumption when the price of electricity is high, increasing export to the grid and being paid at the equivalent feed-in tariff. When you consider the price of electricity can reach levels as high as $15 per kWh for short periods during the year, there’s a significant opportunity to take advantage of this and generate revenue with your solar system. Who would say no to more free money?
If you’re a home battery owner you can further maximise revenue generated by signing up to a virtual power plant (VPP) program, where you can be paid for the use of your battery during peak demand periods. These rewards are typically in addition to the feed-in tariff offered by the electricity retailers. This article from SolarQuotes provides details on some VPP programs currently available in Australia.
Learn more
Considering EV charger options and identifying ways to maximise savings using some of the smart technologies now available can get a little complicated. If you’re looking to learn more about some of the suggestions and technologies discussed in the above article, feel free to get in touch for more information.
Smappee Customisable Online Dashboard for Real-Time & Historical Reporting
Smappee provides a cost effective, plug and play solution to meet the Australian national construction code requirements for energy monitoring and reporting..
The latest revision of the Australian National Construction Code and in particular NCC 2019 Volume One – section J8.3 Facilities for energy monitoring, means a lot when it comes to power metering and gathering historical usage data for light, power and other sub distribution circuits.
New 2019 Requirements
As of the 1st of May 2019 in NSW, VIC, SA, QLD and NT, and from the 1st of June 2019 in ACT the new standards require essentially all sub-distribution boards installed in large commercial facilities to have power meters installed and require the historical time of use data to be captured and accessible via a common data hub/monitoring system.
J8.3 Facilities for energy monitoring
(a) A building or sole-occupancy unit with a floor area of more than 500 m2 must have an energy meter configured to record the time-of-use consumption of gas and electricity.
(b) A building with a floor area of more than 2 500 m2 must have energy meters configured to enable individual time-of-use energy consumption data recording, in accordance with (c), of the energy consumption of—
(i) air-conditioning plant including, where appropriate, heating plant, cooling plant and air handling fans; and
(ii) artificial lighting; and
(iii) appliance power; and
(iv) central hot water supply; and
(v) internal transport devices including lifts, escalators and moving walkways where there is more than one serving the building; and
(vi) other ancillary plant.
(c) Energy meters required by (b) must be interlinked by a communication system that collates the time-of-use energy consumption data to a single interface monitoring system where it can be stored, analysed and reviewed.
(d) The provisions of (b) do not apply to a Class 2 building with a floor area of more than 2 500 m2 where the total area of the common areas is less than 500 m2.
Previously the requirement for metering of these sub-circuits required no data gathering and meters did not need to be connected to a communications network and monitored by a common system; e.g. BMS (building management system) or EMS (energy management system). Power meters could simply be installed and essentially forgotten.
The main intent of these changes to the national construction code is to allow the energy usage data to be utilised by tenants, owners, and facilities managers to identify opportunities to improve efficiency and reduce energy costs. The individual requirements for interval data and how long the data is stored is dependant on the facility itself.
More information on the requirements for submetering per section J8.3 and the intended purpose for the metering system can be found in the Energy Efficiency Handbook – NCC Volume One, which can be downloaded from this page on the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) website.
Better Utilisation of Installed Meters
This is a great initiative to ensure that installed power meters are able to provide functional and accessible insights into a facility’s energy usage, offering potential cost savings by allowing property managers and tenants to make informed decisions about the way they manage energy.
However, connecting sometimes hundreds of power meters to a common network and implementing a system to monitor and capture power usage data can be very costly, often in the range of tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Enter Smappee Infinity
The Smappee Infinity system provides a perfect solution for these networked energy monitoring requirements.
Each modular system can be expanded to monitor up to 28 circuits including conductors rated up to 4,000A.
Furthermore, multiple systems can be added to a single site and all of the data can be reported from the same dashboard.
In addition to power monitoring, the Smappee Input Modules can be used to monitor gas and water consumption by interfacing via pulse output.
Modular Design
The Smappee Infinity range of power monitoring devices allows for one system (Gateway + Power Box + CT Hubs / CTs) to monitor up to twenty-eight conductors. This can be a combination of single and three-phase circuits.
The current clamps range from 50A all the way up to 4,000A, meaning this solution can be used for small commercial buildings all the way up to multi-level facilities with large main feeds from the grid.
By utilising this modular platform end-users can gain large cost savings compared to purchasing and installing multiple power meters, networking equipment, and a custom reporting platform.
Meets Requirement for a Single Interface Monitoring System
Leveraging IoT technology the Smappee dashboard provides the functionality to view multiple Infinity systems from the one online interface.
Each system can be viewed individually, or a common board can be created showing historical data from all systems connected to a single site.
This is called the locations function and allows for easy access to real-time and historical energy usage data at multiple switchboards.
This feature works with both multiple MSBs and DBs in the same facility, or located anywhere in the world.
Data Gathering and Reporting
In addition to the benefits provided by Smappee’s modular hardware solution, data gathering of power usage can be carried out in one of two ways.
Users can utilise the Smappee online dashboard for historical and real-time reporting, including the ability to download data to a spreadsheet file.
The Connect gateway can also provide Modbus-TCP/IP over Ethernet, which can be connected via high level interface to a BMS or EMS.
The cloud-based reporting platform only requires an internet connection to work and the gateway options can achieve this via an Ethernet or WiFi connection to a local network connected to the internet There is also the option to use a 4G USB dongle with the Genius gateway.
Data Storage and Interval Data
The gateway devices will store local data for 24-48 hours in the case that an active internet connection is lost. This is model dependant with the Genius providing 48 hours backup and the Connect series providing 24 hours.
Once the data is stored to the cloud users can access interval data down to 5 minutes for 30 days, hourly data for 90 days, and daily data for up to 12 months.
Gas and Water Monitoring
In addition to power monitoring, Smappee also offers a range of input devices that can be used to collect pulse outputs via an S0 directly or with the assistance of an optical or magnetic sensor. This means that gas and water consumption can also be monitored by the same system.
Save with Smappee
When taking all of the above into account the cost for a Smappee Infinity energy monitoring system to meet the NCC section J8.3 requirements including hardware and cloud-based software is only a fraction of the cost compared to many custom engineered systems. It makes sense to consider Smappee for commercial power monitoring as the advantages can be significant from both a technical and cost perspective.
For more information on how Smappee can provide a cost effective metering solution per the BCA requirements, check out the Smappee Infinity overview Smappee Infinity Energy Management System.
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Sam is very knowledgable and very helpful with any information you need to know. The Smappee products are very high quality and easy to work with. We would recommend Vista Power Technologies to anyone.
Sam at VPT has helped sort out a minor installation problem I had - he was super keen, friendly and knowledgeable and fixed the problem in no time... a great experience.
Great, full featured product and excellent service. Fast replies to emails and quick to reconfigure firmware as required for my Smappee installation. Thoroughly recommended!
Had an issue with the Smappee smart charger not charging. Rang up Vista and spoke to Sam on. Saturday and he figured out the configuration issue and fixed it remotely. Thanks for such great service!
Sam from VPT is extremly knowledgable when it comes to EV charging products and solutions for residential and commercial applications. The customer service and high quality products supplied by Vist Power Technologies are excellent, the after sales support for both installer and customer is amazing, this is a great company to deal with and they can ship to all states within Australia.
Sam at VPT was excellent in helping me select an appropriate EV wall charger for my property. Once ordered the Smappee EV wall arrived within 1 working day.Sam has been an excellent communicator and has assisted me in working through some configuration questions on my unit and is super quick to come back with clear answers and excellent support.Highly recommend the team at VPT.
I purchased a Smappee charger from them and I'm extremely happy. Initially, after getting the quote, I was bit apprehensive about their sparky, but Sam was happy to work directly with my electrician and I'm extremely happy with both (the company's support and the product).
Used VPT to purchase and install a Smappee EV charger. Very knowledgeable and gave some excellent advice. They arranged the installation which was quick and well done. Highly recommended!
Sam at VPT has been so helpful with our large scale Smappee install. He’s been available every step of the way to assist with all of my varying questions! Highly recommended.
After getting the run-around from several EV charger suppliers, I’m glad I found Vista Power Technologies. They supplied a Smappee EV charger which was promptly installed. Sam has been very helpful, especially helping to solve an issue regarding the interface to our existing solar system. I would totally recommend them.
Excellent service and products from the team at Vista Power Technologies.These guys are at the forefront of home energy management. Sam was super helpful, with high level industry knowledge and was happy to discuss and make suggestions to future proof our property in the installation of our Smappee EV Wall unit.Going above and beyond, Sam also built a mounting post for the unit at a reasonable price and in good time.Totally recommended.
Vista Power Technologies are a first class supplier of EV technology. We deal with Sam and the team anytime we require a bespoke solution for EV charging, solar and renewable integration, and dynamic load management. Communication is always clear and the guys are always available for tech support. Great company to work with. Highly recommended.
Vista Power Technologies great company to deal with.Very professional with great Customer Service, Very Knowledgeable and provided excellent advice.As well as Great products with all documentation in one place.Fast shipping. Great Experience.
We encountered a slight hiccup with the Smappee EV charger, Sam was able to remotely run through with the installers and got the problem fixed. Highly recommended!
Fantastic sales and technical support; Sam personally guided me through the design requirements, reaching a configuration that suited my metering exigency!
Vista Power made purchasing and installing a Smappee device a breeze. Sam from VPT is very knowledgeable and went above and beyond to assist me. Would recommend!
Sam from VPT is extremely knowledgeable and a pleasure to deal with. He took the time to understand what i was trying to do and advice on how i should approach and the modules that i should be using.
Bought a Smappee from Vista. They were very helpful and we're really happy with the energy monitor and the information it provides. All around great service and experience
Sam at VPT was extremely helpful in providing technical data about the smappee product range which I was considering for power monitoring application. I purchased the system and it was a breeze to install and setup and now I have real-time power data to evaluate the size of solar installation required for my property
Vista Power Technologies knows all about Energy Monitoring & Control. I purchased the Smappee Energy Monitor with the Cloud Monitoring option and can only speak highly of them from my experience. They will help you choose the right solution for your project and figure out the best way to maximise your energy usage in a home environment or in a commercial environment. Their pricing is very reasonable.A big A+ for Sam who help me with my solution and provided great customer service, advice and a willingness to help achieve the outcome I wanted. Their after sales support is also top-notch.
We've installed Smappee in our home and are enjoying being able to learn more about our electricity use and how much solar is saving us. Vista Power were super helpful. I definitely recommend them as they definitely look after you and your needs.
