Electric Bill vs. Sense

General Sense Discussion
#1

We just received our first electric bill after having installed our sense. The bill is dated from Nov 6-Dec 9 and our Sense was installed Nov 14th.

Our electric bills have been abnormally high for quite a while so one reason we bought the Sense was to get a grasp on where all that electricity is going. So here are the numbers for this month:

Sense says our usage is 343.2 from (from Nov 14 - Dec 9), so let’s add roughly another 150 KW for the extra week to equal 493. 2 KW for the month.

The Electric bill states that our usage is 1758 KW (from Nov 6 - Dec 9)

I am not even sure what is happening…is our sense not accurately “sensing” our electric usage? Could our meter be faulty? We have checked to ensure that the clamps are fully closed on the sense, but I am not even sure where to go from here…

Has anyone ever had a discrepancy like this?

Thanks!

#2

Most people usually see very close correlation between their electric bills and Sense, but there could be a few factors that get in the way:

  • Do you have a smart meter or is your meter read by a human ? If human, is that reading exactly on schedule ? If a smart meter, how often does the meter do an actual read vs. a calculated read ? And if these questions are a bit beyond what you know, I can try and help you step through them.
  • Are you sure the Sense CTs (current sensors) are on your house mains ? A few folks have installed their Senses on a parallel subpanel in the past an only seen part of their home’s load ?
  • Are you sure the CTs are are closed all the way ? You seemed to have checked, but it can be tricky. One recent user thought they had the CTs closed all the way, but closing the breaker panel was causing one or both to open, so they finally taped them closed and saw a big improvement.

Here’s are some thoughts on other ways to check accuracy, especially if you have a smart meter.

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