1

I'm in California trying to figure out where my electricity is going, so I'm considering installing a home electrical monitor like Emporia Vue or Sense. However, they all take it for granted that you have two service mains easily accessible, like this:

Installation instruction with two easily accessible service mains

Meanwhile, the accessible parts of my panel looks like this:

Electrical panel without accessible service mains

Above the panel is an electrical smart meter with a PG&E tamper seal. As far as I can tell, I can't get it off without breaking the seal.

Do I have any options for DYI, or do I need a professional electrician at this point?

3
  • zoom out to see the screws holding the panel with meter
    – DIY75
    Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 19:49
  • There are no screws holding the panel with the meter. Tugging at it makes it appear that it would slide out if not for the meter and its collar. Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 20:05
  • And I see an awful lot of 240V breakers in this panel. If you want a general panel review, ask a new question with clear pix of both the panel and the list of which breakers power what, which should be a little "schedule sheet". Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 20:28

3 Answers 3

3

Unfortunately your mains are here:

enter image description here

You cannot attach things under the cover where the meter is, that is the power company's domain. It appears that this is some sort of "integrated" panel/meter base that saves $5 by not have separate wires for the mains into the busses.

You might contact Sense or the other vendor and see if they have a solution here but as it is, the clamp-on sensors don't appear to be compatible with this box.

1
  • 1
    I had a look and it appears that Emporia Vue (but no one else I could find) has a bus bar monitor specifically for this purpose. It appears to wrap around the bars below the breakers, and looks like exactly what I need. Thanks! Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 23:59
2

An electrician can't help you here.

Those CTs cannot be fit on panels of this style.

What you have here is an "all-in-one" combo/everything meter+main+panel.

As such, the connections from meter to main, and from main to branch circuit breakers, are rendered as "bus bars" which are part of the structure of the machine. They are not wires, cannot be made into wires, and cannot be clamped.

It isn't going to happen. I'm sorry.

The only way to use a Sense or competitor power monitor is to put a CT on each branch circuit. Which in turn requires the power monitor to support a large number of branch circuits. However we can work around this a bit:

  • Note that 240V circuits without neutral only need 1 wire clamped, however you must configure the software to say that's a 240V circuit.

  • 240V circuits with neutral need clamps on both hots if you want exact resolution, but you don't need that on a range/oven because the only 120V/imbalance load is the oven light, and on a dryer clamping 1 wire will result in 10-20% inaccuracy. (the tumble motor would either be not counted, or counted twice).

  • You can also get 240V loads accurately by running both hot wires opposite directions through the CT, and then configuring them as (paradoxically) 120V loads. This will count 120V imbalance loads once, but 240V loads twice since it goes through the CT twice. Hence you need a 120V multiplier.

  • If you're willing to sacrifice some fineness to reduce needed number of CTs, you can combine several branch circuits under a single CT. Polarity is very important here: wires from one pole/phase need to go one direction through the CT, and wires from the other pole/phase need to go the other direction. If this is wrong, loads on the circuit will subtract instead of add (e.g. a 1500W heater on 2 of the circuits would read as 0W instead of 3000W). Do some testing to validate that you got it right.

The "hail Mary" play is talk to your AHJ and power company

And you'll be familiar with the AHJ because of course you pulled a permit for this work LOL!

You would need to ask the AHJ for permission to route the CT clamps up into the "meter part" of the meter pan, because hopefully at the top of the meter are wires capable of being clamped.

And then, you would need to ask power company permission to do the same exact thing. Because they are responsible / have ownership of what happens inside the meter pan. Their seal is on there to detect attempts to steal power by bypassing the meter.

If both the city and the power company bless the venture, then you can install the CTs in a way which both find acceptable. You need both parties' consent because the power company won't work with you unless you have a permit.

2

Do you have a smart meter? Emporia makes a model that links to your smart meter via RF, but your utility has to participate and they have to register the MAC address of the device for you.

I got mine from a large online retailer you may have heard of and filled out the form on SCE's website to get it registered. Took about a day before I was up and running. The device itself simply plugs into a 15A outlet like one of those oil warming air reoderizers.

The upside is there are no CTs to install and no need to even get behind the dead front of your panel. The downside is I don't know how many utilities in CA participate, but I bet it's not all of them. You do lose the granularity of being able to measure per branch circuit, but for me that wasn't extremely important.

EDIT: I just re-read and noticed your utility is PG&E. They do participate but I wasn't able to see how you register the device because they put it behind a subscriber login wall. Here is the link to the Emporia website explaining the device:

Emporia VUE Utility Connect - How it Works

2
  • Would those add-on metres be needed with smart meters. My power company allows me to login and see how much power I have used. Think they also do hour by hour graph if I wanted. Might take a day or two to show up on their web site. Not live time.
    – crip659
    Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 20:47
  • I can do that too, but I only get time averages - I think the shortest I can go on the utility's website is 1 hour averages. This updates in real time every couple of seconds, so I can watch my power draw/supply change as I turn things on and off or as solar comes in/goes out. My EVSE also interfaces with it to decide when to charge and when to hold off based on rate, time, or excess solar.
    – Chris O
    Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 21:11

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.