Energy & Power¶
This page covers how the house tracks electricity — the time-of-use pricing it runs on, the whole-home and per-circuit monitoring, where to see it all, and how gas is handled.
Time-of-Use Pricing¶
Our electricity is billed on Dominion Energy Schedule 1G, a time-of-use (TOU) plan. The price per kilowatt-hour changes depending on the time of day:
| Period | What it means | Roughly when |
|---|---|---|
| Peak | The most expensive time to use power | Weekday afternoons (summer) / weekday mornings + evenings (winter) |
| Off-peak | The normal, middle rate — most of the day | Daytime outside the peak windows, plus all weekend day |
| Super off-peak | The cheapest time — run heavy loads now | Overnight, roughly midnight–5 AM, every day |
For reference, off-peak currently runs around $0.143/kWh; peak is roughly double that, and super off-peak is a little cheaper than off-peak.
Rates drift over time
The exact cents-per-kWh change when Dominion updates the schedule. Don't memorize a number — the dashboard always shows the live current rate. What stays true is the ordering: peak = priciest, super off-peak = cheapest.
When the peak window falls (weekdays only — weekends and holidays are off-peak all day):
| Season (months 5–9 = summer) | Peak hours |
|---|---|
| Summer (May–Sep) | ~3:00 PM – 6:00 PM |
| Winter (Oct–Apr) | ~6:00 AM – 9:00 AM and ~5:00 PM – 8:00 PM |
The simple takeaway
Run the dishwasher, dryer, washer, and other big optional loads outside the peak window — ideally overnight (super off-peak). Weekends never hit peak.
The office "is it cheap right now?" bulb¶
There's a Sengled bulb in Louis's office (light.louis_office_sengled_a19_bulb_1) that acts as an at-a-glance price signal. While it's on, it glows (very dim, ~1% brightness):
| Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🔵 Blue | Super off-peak — cheapest, great time for heavy loads |
| 🟢 Green | Off-peak — normal |
| 🔴 Red | Peak — most expensive, hold off on big appliances |
A quick glance answers "is now a good time to start the dryer?" without opening an app. It re-tints whenever the period changes (and whenever the bulb is switched on).
How the House Saves on Peak Hours¶
The Ecobee thermostats handle HVAC pre-conditioning around the peak windows through their own built-in Eco+ feature — they pre-cool (summer) or pre-heat (winter) before peak so the system coasts through the expensive hours.
Home Assistant does not run the HVAC
Eco+ lives entirely on the thermostats. Home Assistant only watches the HVAC (power draw, runtime) — it never sets temperatures or pre-cools anything. See the climate page for thermostat detail.
Beyond HVAC, the house also sends a phone alert if a big appliance (oven, dryer, dishwasher, washer, whirlpool) is running during a peak window — a nudge to consider waiting.
"Wash → Cheap" — one-tap overnight washer¶
The Command dashboard's Overview tab has a Wash → Cheap button (also "Alexa, activate Delay Wash to Super-Off-Peak") that schedules the washer to run overnight in super-off-peak (midnight–5 AM, the cheapest tier).
To use it: load the washer, pick a cycle, and press Remote Start on the machine — then tap the button. It sets the washer's delay so the cycle starts around midnight and confirms with a phone message. If you tap it without arming Remote Start first, you'll get a heads-up telling you to do that.
Washer only
The dryer can't be scheduled this way — LG's app gives Home Assistant no start/delay control for the dryer, only the washer. Run the dryer in the morning after the overnight wash. (First-use check: confirm the wash actually starts near midnight — if your unit instead treats the delay as "finish by," it'll finish at midnight and we'll adjust.)
Whole-Home & Per-Circuit Monitoring¶
The house has a Refoss EM16P energy monitor on each of the two electrical panels — installed and live. Together they clamp the service mains plus the individual branch circuits, so we can see both total house draw and where the power is going.
sensor.whole_home_power— live whole-home power, in watts (summed from the four service-leg mains across both panels).- Per-circuit sensors — each monitored circuit reports its own live watts (and cumulative kWh).
The circuits are grouped on the dashboard like this:
| Group | What's in it |
|---|---|
| Appliances | Fridge, stove/oven, dryer, dishwasher, washer, microwave, whirlpool |
| Bedrooms & Baths | Master bed/bath, other bedrooms, bathroom receptacles |
| Lighting & General | Foyer, family room, kitchen/dining, living room, outside lights, garage |
| HVAC | 3 AC condensers (one per floor), the 3rd-floor air handler, and the two gas-furnace blowers |
There are also per-condenser "runtime today" readouts (hours each AC condenser has run) for spotting HVAC problems early.
Full circuit map & sensor definitions
For the complete CT-to-entity mapping of both panels, the TOU rate tables, and the cost-sensor pipeline, see the Energy Technical Reference.
Cost tracking¶
The monitoring feeds a running cost layer, priced against the live TOU rate:
| Sensor | What it tells you |
|---|---|
sensor.energy_cost_today | Today's electricity cost so far |
sensor.energy_cost_this_month | Month-to-date bill (resets on the 1st) |
sensor.energy_cost_accumulated | Cumulative cost the monthly total is built from |
sensor.whole_home_energy_peak / _off_peak / _super_off_peak | Today's kWh split by TOU period |
Behind the scenes, utility-meter helpers roll these up into the monthly bill figure.
Where to See It — the Command Dashboard¶
Open the Command dashboard from the sidebar (URL /command-center) and tap the Energy tab. It shows:
- Cost hero — today's cost so far in large type, with the month-to-date total and the live TOU period + $/kWh rate beside it. Tap it to pop up a "Daily Cost — This Month" chart.
- Today's kWh by TOU period — a horizontal bar reading left-to-right: blue super off-peak → green off-peak → red peak. The bigger the red segment, the more you spent at the priciest rate.
- Whole-Home Power graph — live house draw over time. Tap the graph to open a "Circuits" pop-up listing live draw by group (Appliances / Bedrooms & Baths / Lighting & General / HVAC).
Quick glance on the Overview tab
The Overview tab carries a live power chip (e.g. "3.3 kW · off-peak") so you can check the house at a glance without opening the Energy tab.
For deeper history and trends, the Grafana "Home Intelligence" dashboard has the long-term charts.
Gas¶
Gas is handled completely separately from electricity, and not automatically metered into Home Assistant.
- Utility: City of Richmond DPU.
- Meter: a Sensus R-275 (serial 13551072), read by the utility over Sensus FlexNet — a licensed fixed wireless network.
Why gas isn't on the dashboard
The RTL-SDR radio attached to the server can only decode Itron ERT meters. Our gas meter is a Sensus unit on FlexNet, which it physically cannot hear. (A 2026-06-18 over-the-air check confirmed the Itron signals nearby are neighbors' gas meters and some water meters — not ours.) So gas readings come manually from the dial or the bill. A future option is an ESP32 camera that reads the meter dial automatically.
Electric Meter Note¶
For the same reason, the Dominion electric meter can't be read by the radio either — it uses AMI, not the Itron ERT signal the radio decodes. That's fine: all the whole-home and per-circuit electricity data comes from the installed Refoss EM16P monitors described above, not from the utility meter.