Energy Technical Reference¶

The technical companion to the user-facing Energy & Power page. This documents the monitoring hardware, the full circuit-to-entity map, the time-of-use rate logic, and the sensor pipeline that turns raw watts into a month-to-date bill.

All the derived sensors, utility meters, and TOU templates described here live in configuration_tou_addition.yaml (loaded as the tou package). The raw per-circuit sensors come from the refoss_rpc integration. The full project workstream guide is projects/house_energy_strategy.md in the repo.

System Overview¶

Panel 1 — Lighting & General¶

Physical Panel 1 · HA device "Panel 1 Energy Monitor" · raw channels em_channel_1–18 (phase-grouped: ch1–6 = A1–A6, ch7–12 = B1–B6, ch13–18 = C1–C6; ch1 = A1 main, ch7 = B1 main). Channels renamed in HA to the friendly entity IDs below.

Dropped (no CT — 3): attic/smoke detectors (~0 W), disposal (seconds/day), upstairs-hall lights (swapped out so the Foyer could be monitored instead).

Panel 2 — Main Appliances¶

Physical Panel 2 · HA device "Panel 2 Energy Monitor" · raw channels a1–c6 (match the CT labels directly).

240 V leg-sums: the air handler, stove, and dryer each use two CTs (one per leg) and are summed in template sensors (= _l1_power + _l2_power). The three AC condensers use a single CT in 240 V/×2 mode (pure 240 V, balanced legs → exact).

Derived & Whole-Home Sensors¶

All defined in configuration_tou_addition.yaml.

Sensor pipeline¶

flowchart TD
    M[4 service-leg mains<br/>em_panel1/2_main_l1/l2_power] --> WHP[sensor.whole_home_power]
    WHP -->|integration| WHE[sensor.whole_home_energy_total]
    WHE -->|utility_meter daily, tariff-split| TOU[whole_home_energy_peak / off_peak / super_off_peak]
    TOU --> CT[sensor.energy_cost_today]
    R[sensor.tou_rate] --> CT
    WHP --> CR[sensor.energy_cost_rate]
    R --> CR
    CR -->|integration| CA[sensor.energy_cost_accumulated]
    CA -->|utility_meter monthly| CM[sensor.energy_cost_this_month]
    P[sensor.tou_period] -->|TOU-sync automation| TOU

Time-of-Use Logic¶

sensor.tou_period and sensor.tou_rate are triggered template sensors that re-evaluate every minute and on HA start. input_boolean.peak_mode is toggled by an automation when tou_period changes — use peak_mode in automations, not the raw period string. Season is months 5–9 = summer. Weekends and the 6 listed holidays are off-peak all day (no peak window).

Summer (May–Sep) — weekdays¶

Winter (Oct–Apr) — weekdays¶

Weekends & holidays (year-round)¶

TOU tariff-sync automation¶

A dedicated automation calls utility_meter.select_tariff (peak / off_peak / super_off_peak) whenever sensor.tou_period changes, so the whole_home_energy daily utility meter accrues today's kWh into the correct tariff bucket. Without this, whole_home_energy_{peak,off_peak,super_off_peak} and energy_cost_today would not split correctly.

HVAC Observation Sensors¶

HVAC is observation-only — these sensors never control anything (Ecobee Eco+ owns heating/cooling). See Climate & Comfort.

The condenser→floor mapping is locked: 1 = 1st floor (CT a6), 2 = 2nd floor (CT a5), 3 = 3rd floor (CT b5). Three short-cycle automations (one per condenser) notify if a condenser cycles on→off within 8 minutes. The gas-furnace blowers (em_attic_furnace_power, em_crawl_furnace_power on Panel 1) are low-wattage run proxies — the gas furnaces themselves can't be seen by wattage.

Data Logging & Visualization¶

InfluxDB 1.x records the sensor domain (auto-included in influxdb_ha.yaml), so all EM16P power/energy channels are logged. Grafana queries it over InfluxQL (not Flux). Reminder on the schema: the InfluxDB measurement = the entity's unit_of_measurement, and the entity_id tag has no sensor. prefix.

The Grafana Home Intelligence dashboard's ⚡ Energy row is live and wired to sensor.whole_home_power (vs TOU rate), sensor.whole_home_energy_{peak,off_peak,super_off_peak} (Energy by TOU Period), Circuit Power Now, HVAC Power, and Today's Cost (sensor.energy_cost_today). Query detail is in Grafana Analytics.

On the HA side, everything surfaces on the Command dashboard's Energy tab — see Energy & Power for the user-facing layout, and the Automations Reference for the peak-hour appliance alert.

See Also¶

• Energy & Power — the user-facing version of this system
• Climate & Comfort — Ecobee, Eco+, and why HA doesn't drive HVAC
• Automations Reference — peak-hour appliance alerts, condenser short-cycle alerts
• Grafana Analytics — the ⚡ Energy row queries
• Entity IDs — full entity inventory