Watt is going on in my home?

Fri 20 October 2023

A while ago I purchased a energy meter to monitor the energy usage in my home. The energy meter showed that I was using more than 85 watts of electricity continuously. I decided that it would be interesting to figure out what is causing this and whether my energy usage could be improved.

TP-Link P115 | Smart socket & Energy monitor

I bought 2 energy monitoring sockets. They operate using Wi-Fi. This means that they are easy to setup using an app and do not require additional hardware. I decided to buy the TP-Link P115, because they are small and cheap.

Installation using my phone was straightforward. I had to create a account with TP-Link. Soon enough I was able to monitor the energy usage and switch the sockets remotely.

I decided to measure the power consumption of a single socket and discovered it consumes <1 watt.

If you are looking for very detailed monitoring, then this socket lacks the detail. It is not able to show small loads very well and quick peaks are sometimes not visualized. However for use in a home, it exceeds my expectations.

Things I have learned

I have measured several devices in my home. This is what I have learned.

• Our older Miele washing machine is consuming less then expected. One program is far beyond 1KWh. The maximum power usage peaks around 2200 watts in the beginning, but afterwards it is around ~50 watts peak.
• Our Close-in (kitchen) boiler consumes about 0,45 KWh per day. Switching it off for most of the day, like in this blog article is not very helpful. It saves 0,1 KWh per day, but the water does not stay hot for very long.
• Our Denons HEOS 1 HS2 speakers consume 4 watts each when being in stand-by and connected to WiFi. This is something worth to address, because we do not use them very often.
• Our TV + Chromecast with Google TV (HD) + Xbox One S setup consumes less then a watt while being connected to WiFi.

Next steps

I will continue with measuring the energy usage of the devices in my home. In the mean time I will try to think about how to reduce the energy usage without reducing the comfort too much.

I think it is worth finding solutions for small power draws. Because every watt saved results in a free washing machine run every month!