Tag: optimised solar consumption

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.