I image that for many people (maybe not all) that the outside temperature greatly affects our consumption of electricity. Whether that be solar production, heating, cooling, hot tub, pool, etc, the weather can play a large role in how much energy our homes consume. I would love a feature that shows the average, high and low temps for each day when looking at “trends”.
I actually have two heating systems that I can chose from, oil furnace or ducted heat pump. It may sound like a no brainer to use the heat pump, but when the weather gets below 10F, I feel like my oil furnace is more efficient. (This is the primary reason I bought the Sense, to discover this truth).
So, in short, I think it would provide some good insight to understand how much energy our homes consume/make compared to the outside weather.
I have a slightly different perspective since most of my heat comes via natural gas, though I recently added some electric floor heaters… I think the thermostat is the natural place to correlate energy usage (or at least heating/cooling runtime) with temperature. But I already get that out of my Ecobees.
Just wish the floor heating thermostats had as much smart as the Ecobees - the proprietary NuHeat thermostats cost about the same, but only give this, without any outside temperature info.
+1 on that.
I understand that is a “trivial” feature in the scope of what sense is working on, but is very nice to see, and would be great to see in sense directly since I barely even look at the utility site since installing.
gatchek…[quote=“gatchek, post:1, topic:9625”]
So, in short, I think it would provide some good insight to understand how much energy our homes consume/make compared to the outside weather.
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I really think what you are looking for is the heating and cooling degree days. This is computed on the ave high and ave low of the day. " A heating degree day (HDD) is a measurement designed to quantify the demand for energy needed to heat a building. It is the number of degrees that a day’s average temperature is below 65o Fahrenheit (18o Celsius), which is the temperature below which buildings need to be heated." Then there is a cooling degree day…
Here is a report from my area on the weather for the month. It has the heating degree day in the middle… Some NOAA radio stations broadcast this information. If this is what you are looking for I will go into more detail at a later time…Enjoy…Gerry
MONTHLY CLIMATOLOGICAL SUMMARY for JAN. 2020
NAME: xxxxx CITY: Luzerne STATE: Michigan
ELEV: 1140 ft LAT: 44° xx’ xx" N LONG: 84° xx’ xx" W
TEMPERATURE (°F), RAIN (in), WIND SPEED (mph)
HEAT COOL AVG
MEAN DEG DEG WIND DOM
DAY TEMP HIGH TIME LOW TIME DAYS DAYS RAIN SPEED HIGH TIME DIR
Re-read this blog in the SENSE forum. You will see several people have tried to correlate outside temperature to home energy use. There is a slight correlation, but mainly your electrical usage depends on many other factors. Use the CDD or HDD data/charts and plot your own graphs in EXCEL. I don’t think this is something that we should ask the SENSE programmers to provide on the SENSE app.
Yes - you can export up to a year’s worth of data at a time via the export icon in the upper right corner of the web app, though only in either 1 day or 1 hour intervals. Very useful. I think right now, all reporting in Sense, as well as the underlying data structures except for the various Power Meters, is aggregated into 1 hour values.
I would imagine that depending on where you live and what type of heating/cooling system you have, the outside temperature Can play a significant role in electric usage. I can’t speak for anyone else, but in New Hampshire, with an air source heat pump, the winter weather accounts for 75-80% of my electric usage. (I originally bought Sense to have a greater understanding of this actual %).
So while the weather may not play a significant role if you live in a mild climate with a natural gas heating system and a brand new energy efficient home, the weather does play a large role if you live in more harsh climate, with poorer insulation, and an electric heating system.
While I completely agree that outside temperature is not everything, obviously daily living variables account for usage as well, but for some it most certainly has a large impact. For me (eastern Pennsylvania) it most absolutely does, and is backed by the screenshot I posted earlier. As you can see, there is a clear correlation between temperature and electric usage for me. I would assume that is why my utility company provides that graph in the first place. I as well have an air source heatpump with electric strip backup. When the temperature drops below 20ish degrees (F) the heatpump is essentially ineffective and runs constantly and the backup heat strips cycle on and off as needed to help. My backup heat is 15KW alone so as you can expect, it adds up very quickly.
I have included 2 more months back after my previous post to show this is not just a fluke in the data:
In addition to integrating daily temperature data from public sources I would like to see integration with a temperature sensor located at my house. This can provide more detailed and accurate temperature of the housing site. Local conditions such as leaves on the big tree out front will be included. Support for multiple temperature sensors indoors and out would be helpful. These can also help to assess HVAC efficiency and effectiveness.
