Subtract Electric Vehicle Usage from Alerts

Deleted previous comment as I took the question out of context and it is irrelevant to the thread.

Or is the stat you’re asking about “how many Sense users have EV’s”? I guess it could be taken both ways.

Also this post is very similar to my concerns that I voiced here: Additional details for percentage notifications

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Correct, I was looking for: How many Sense users have EVs. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Chimes in @JustinAtSense … do you know the percentage of Sense accounts have an EV detected?

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The answer is probably lower than you would have thought… roughly 7% of our users have an EV.

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I’m surprised it’s that high since 3% of sales of new vehicles are EVs and 20% of EV owners are returning to gas.

I would assume that your percentage of solar users is higher than EV.

@jefflayman, I’m still thinking about how we might get to more meaningful and actionable alerts. The challenge is the current Sense simple heuristics lead to many, many false positives - alerts that aren’t all that unusual given the usage patterns of a few large devices. I’m thinking that Sense could embed a few predictive models for EVs and HVAC that would adjust the thresholds for alerts based on usage or expected usage - don’t flag the huge EV charging spike, adjust usage threshold based on outside temp if HVAC is on. But that’s a very hard problem to make work generally.

Excellent response, @kevin1! Predictive models for HVAC based on outside temperature could eliminate false positives for HVAC, but as you note, such models are hard to get right. An exclusion on EV usage would be comparatively simple to implement. For EV owners, this Wishlist suggestion sounds like a good way to nibble away at the issue of false-positive alerts.

I’m a new EV owner, but personally I’d like a way to separate out my EV energy. I view it this way: power that goes into my car is not part of my home. It’s fuel for my car, just like gasoline. I’m mostly interested in my home usage.

I’d still want to know how much energy my EV is using, but when it comes to alerts about high usage, I wouldn’t want it to take my EV into account for exactly the same reasons OP stated. If one day you drive considerably more than usual, then obviously you’re going to consume a lot more energy than usual. If this happens a couple of times per week, you’ll get these notifications frequently and then they lose meaning.

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Another reason I’d like to separate out my EV usage is that my solar system was sized to my needs before I got an EV. Now that I have an EV, I expect to always have a deficit when it comes to kWh produced vs consumed, but I’d still like to know if my solar system is meeting the needs of my house.

Plus, let’s say I want to compare electricity consumption of this year to last year. I want to see just the consumption of my home to get a fair comparison.


Below is my support request to Sense on Nov 15th and the response. Basically a very useful aspect of the Sense monitoring device, relative comparisons to prior months/weeks/days or others with Sense is invalid for my home, and presumably all EV owners.

I frequently get alerts “your energy use spiked yesterday 121%” It happens whenever I randomly charge my Electric Car, is there anyway, or could you add a feature, to exclude certain devices from your energy use trends? Also this impacts my “compared to other users” I would want to exclude my car charging to other users in NY unless they also owned an EV.

Hi there,
Thank you for reaching out!
We understand your need to separate EV charging from consumption detection in order to generate a customized power use notice. Unfortunately, this feature is not presently available for the Sense monitor; however, we will forward this ticket to the appropriate parties within the Sense Team so that this feature can be considered and possibly made accessible for our valued customers in the future.
We appreciate our customers’ feedback and apologize for the inconvenience!
Please feel free to contact us if you have any other questions or recommendations.
Regards,
Tejaswi
Sense Customer Support

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I like that idea. There is probably also a need to do a little bit more elaborate forecasting than just the average for weekday vs weekend since usage is also seasonal (lighting, heating, cooling holiday decorations), and might also depend on day of week for many folks who don’t work the normal Mon-Fri.

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There’s a feature we’re working on that you should see within the next month or so that should take out some of the guesswork when you hit new peaks. I’d be interested in hearing how our interpretation of that compares to what you have proposed here once it releases.

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@JustinAtSense , awesome that something is in the works! Looking forward to testing it out…

Going to merge these items now, thanks!

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2 years later…


Significant Energy Change reports continue to be useless if you own an electric car.
I’m positive the % of EV ownership is up. Please fix these alerts / reports.

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I don’t have a traditional EV, but my sister has one. I asked her if I could plug her car in when she came to visit me. I wanted to experience for myself what charging an EV would look like from the energy monitoring perspective.

If you see something anomalous in the above graph at week 9, you will know how I categorized the energy usage by my sister’s EV. I did get a notification from Sense for the day. Charging was done using 110V and monitored using a Kasa smart plug: 6.4 kWh was applied to the car. This Kasa plug is identified in Sense as an electric vehicle under What’s Plugged In.

Operating an EV is efficient: energy for this test day cost about $1 where I live. I asked my sister how many miles she gets per kWh, but she didn’t know (her husband keeps track of such things). Supposing she gets 4 miles per kWh, then she could drive 25 miles on that amount of energy. Most gasoline cars need about a gallon of fuel to travel that far, and a gallon of gas goes for $3 or $4 these days.

Based on my one-day test, it makes economic sense to run an EV if you have one. However, the associated alert from Sense about energy usage is of no benefit when the only thing out of the ordinary was EV charging. Thus, I have added my support to this wish list item.

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I’m reaching out today about a small issue with the power usage alerts for EV owners that I believe could be easily addressed and have a significant impact on their experience.

As you know, many EV owners are excited about making the switch to a more sustainable form of transportation. However, one concern they often face is understanding their electricity usage and potential charging costs. Your app’s power monitoring alerts play a crucial role in providing this information.

However, I’ve noticed that the current alert system triggers when my electricity usage spikes by 7000W, which coincides with charging my EV. While this spike is completely normal and expected, it can be quite alarming for first-time EV owners.

Imagine someone who’s just transitioned to an EV and sees this large power usage alert. It could lead to unnecessary worry or confusion about whether something is wrong with their car or charging system.

I believe a simple fix could be to:

  • Adjust the alert threshold for known EV charging patterns to avoid triggering unnecessary alarms.
  • Provide a brief explanation alongside the alert that clarifies the spike is likely due to EV charging and is completely normal.

These small changes could go a long way in providing EV owners with a more user-friendly and stress-free experience, while still ensuring they have access to essential information about their power usage.

I understand your team is likely busy with numerous priorities, but I truly believe that addressing this small issue could make a big difference for a growing community of EV owners who rely on your app.

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Added to this:
compare your results only to other sense monitors that have detected EV charging.

But in general:
Sense’s detection is unreliable.
Look at my current situation:


Doesn’t show EV charging
but it shows on the sideline:

Screenshot from 2024-03-05 14-55-11

When I go to the devices info and choose my EV:


It recognized I started charging my EV at just before 1PM.
The usage is allocated to charging my EV, but the main screen says “OTHER”

And when I click on “OTHER”

The smart meter from Itron which includes Sense technology is called Riva. Their brochure (https://www.itron.com/-/media/feature/products/documents/brochure/itron-distributed-intelligence-brochure.pdf)
has the figure below. I was curious about their EV Awareness feature, whether it be the same or different than device-level detection in Sense.

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