AC Energy Comparison analyzes air conditioner energy usage in your home compared to similar homes. Sense calculates your average AC energy usage per day (kWh) during the summer months and compares performance to other homes depending on the ‘Home Details’ you’ve entered in the Sense app, including:
State
Zip code
Local weather
Home size
Please note, AC Energy Comparison relies on Sense having at least partial detection of your AC and currently only works for central ACs, heat pumps and some window ACs.
If you’ve received a notification in the Sense app about AC Energy Comparison, we’d like you to share details here in the community.
How to create an AC Energy Comparison stall post for community feedback
Title - For the title of your new post, please label the post: AC Energy Comparison - [SUBJECT]
Completeness - In order for the Sense community to provide feedback or insight, please share the below details when submitting a post to the community.
Tagging - Please make sure the entry is tagged correctly as “AC Energy Comparison”
Consistent formatting - Please make sure you have as many of the above criteria as possible in your post so Sense community members can offer feedback or questions.
Required information to include:
What type of AC do you have?
Central AC (ducted)
Geothermal (ducted)
Air Handler
Other - please specify
What type of blower does your AC have?
Conventional constant or fixed speed motor
Variable speed motor
I don’t know
What type of compressor does your AC have?
Conventional constant or fixed speed compressor (most units have this)
Variable-speed electronic inverter-controlled motor (most mini-splits, some modern ducted ACs, heat-pumps, and window-ACs have this)
I don’t know
Have you performed a Home Energy Audit OR did a professional perform an audit?
What did you find?
What did you change?
Optional Information to include:
Make/Model of your AC?
How old is your AC?
Resources for AC Energy Comparison
If you have found additional state (or national) resources, please reach out to @JustinAtSense.
If you’ve already performed a DIY Home Energy Audit, having a professional come out for a routine inspection is the next step. Before paying for a professional home energy audit, check to see if your state offers free or discounted audits as part of their energy efficiency program.
@JustinAtSense Greetings! I noticed the AC Energy Comparison module however it notes it is not available for comparison. Is there a length of time Sense had to have been installed before it becomes “active”? I installed August 2nd, 2020. My home details are filled out but I don’t see a “weather” entry, assume this and “state” is taken from zip code? My AC was identified in the first couple weeks so would have expected it would have provided a comparison. Cool to see this feature. Does it talk to my (3) ecobee3’s installed as well from my data send?
We have a geothermal water-to-air heat pump (Hydron Module), which has two compressors in one box and two separate air handlers (one upstairs, one down.) It has to be really hot to run the second compressor; I think it only turned on once this summer. We used the heat pump most of July, and only a few days in August. Sense is really bad at picking up the heat pump, unfortunately, so its claim that we’re near the middle of the pack in usage is pretty much worthless. However, the daily kWh usage can be used to estimate actual AC cost; it runs about 20kWh per day when it’s really hot out.
The main part of the house is stone, probably built around 1800. The back part is wood, new in 2017 along with the heat pump, all the appliances, and us!
How often are the comparisons updated? I noticed mine said my ac was under performing. It’s new so I raised an eyebrow and started looking into things. My house was listed at 1000 square feet, when in reality it’s 1500. I made the change, but the comparison was the same.
Hi @ivanrussell. During the summer AC season, AC Energy Comparison is updated every two weeks. However, now that the AC season is mostly over we have stopped updating the underlying data. So your summer 2020 AC usage (May- September) will be shown until it starts up again next year. We’re making some changes to the copy in-app to clearly reflect that.
the AC Energy Comparison is not available for my home, since installing the SENSE monitor (and before) I felt like my AC’s were consuming way too much energy. I have been unable to find what an average draw is for a system of my size.
I have a ~ 3,600 SF home in Hawaii, it has two conventional Split AC systems. one is a 5 ton the other a 2.5 ton, both 13 SEER. SENSE has discovered both compressors and blowers for each unit.
Our $$ for electrical power in Hawaii is one of if not the highest in the US ~ .37 KWH. My first and most basic question is what is the normal Draw for the above compressors running.
if anyone can give me a ball park if would be very helpful.
Thanks in advance !
-O.D.
thank you Kevin, your 18 Seer units are for sure more efficient. Looking at the Power meter specifically when the larger 5 ton unit is running it pulling 4100w, the smaller unit which is a 3 Ton (not 2.5 as stated above is 1650w running. I looked at a report from July 2020 (we are not running AC’s now) and the larger 5 ton average was 39.5KWA / Day. The smaller 3 Ton unit used on average 10.2KWA / Day.
Thanks again for your feedback.
-O.D.
Sense have not been able to discover my two Lennox (CX20-060-230A01) 5 ton 20SER units after more than 2 years operation. My guess is that it can’t find them because it does not turn on with a sharp increase in consumption but instead comes on slowly, over several seconds. Since they have not been found by now, I’m guessing they may never be found. Sense does see the fan blowers come on though.
If I could add a screenshot one could see one of my AC units kick in slowly to full cooling. It took more than 30 seconds to go to full cooling.
If you aren’t using Sense Solar (or other middle-port configurations), I might recommend taking a look at Flex Add-on Sensors for tracking your AC units. You can find out more about Flex Add-on sensor utilizations here: https://blog.sense.com/sense-gets-flexible-with-flex-add-on-sensors/
I understand from previous posts that I need a full summers worth of data for it to become available… I am fine with that… So even though the UI shows that the feature is unavailable is it actually “available and in-use”, but the DATA is unavailable because it hasn’t gathered enough of it?
Or is the feature unavailable/inactive…and I am not even in the process of collecting data to feed this feature?
If it is the latter…what can I do to have it active and collecting data?
If it is the former…there needs to be a better message in the UI… My Eero smart thermostat app says something like “There’s not enough data collected to produce the energy comparison reports.” or something like that… That message would at least give me some indication that data is being collected, but it just isn’t enough to generate a report…
Just to confirm. Heat pumps are included with this comparison? I have both my heat pumps connected since April 2020, but the comparison doesn’t show up for me. When does the comparison start?
Hi @torchme68.
Some heat pumps that double as AC’s would be visible in AC Energy Comparison, depending on if Sense has detected it or not.
The feature only considers last summer’s data and we’ll have more information in the coming weeks regarding when data reconciliation will take place for Summer 2021.
Do we know when the AC Comparison report will be available for 2021 ? I was expecting it to be available sometime between late October and early November ( based on Memory on when reports were available for 2020).
I know my AC had issues in 2020 ( furnace fan was bad and was drawing 2x power), and the report mentioned a saving of 99$. I am very interested to see data from 2021
