Just saw these US maps on Power Quality the other day via Ting, another device that looks at power quality, but is mostly focused on fire prevention. My insurance company pays for a 3 year subscription for home and for my vacation place. The first link looks at a variety of quality factors by region and utility.
The second dials in total harmonic distortion (THD).
Interesting, I would think that Sense could probably do a lot of similar data aggregation like Ting is doing. I’m curious how their “1 sensor” is able to monitor a whole house’s electrical system by only looking at 1 phase…I think Sense has a much better window since it plugs directly into both phases inside the panel, but that’s just my opinion.
Another plus is that we (Sense users) don’t have to pay for a subscription, like Ting has!
The two statistics highlighted above evaluate power at the leg the Ting device is hooked to. They are measures of the quality of provided electricity. Yet it seems a safe assumption that the provided power quality is equal on both legs since each leg is energized by the same pole-mounted transformer. I think their claim of evaluating “the grid” is justified.
I’m not sure if the same assumption underlies their primary application, which is the detection of
electrical arcing. The Ting website explains why they can detect this fire hazard by plugging in anywhere in the home.
You mean we get what we pay for ?
Very timely - I’m on the the emailing list for the Sense “utility newsletter” (I think all users can sign up for that here). Sense is doing a pilot with Georgia Power to look at grid integrity.
"To supplement these predictive methodologies, Georgia Power is collaborating with clean tech company Sense on a pilot project to determine if better visibility into grid performance can be leveraged to more quickly identify when a disruption has occurred. Some 80 to 90% of outages affecting the distribution grid are caused by object-on-wire faults, which are difficult to detect. Presently, these scenarios are typically discovered by field teams visually inspecting line segments. The hope is that response times can be improved, thus enhancing safety and reliability for customers.
Georgia Power has begun installing Sense monitors in the homes of Atlanta-area customers who have opted to participate in the pilot. The Sense monitor is a retrofit device that installs directly into home electrical panels. These devices will provide Georgia Power with a high-resolution view of the local distribution system and a better understanding of grid anomalies like “tree slaps,” which occur when branches fall onto or otherwise strike power lines."
