SmartHub, our online member portal, now includes some new tools that help you better understand how your home uses electricity.
Using data from your electric meter, these tools estimate how much energy different appliances and systems in your home use, such as heating, cooling, refrigeration, lighting, and more.
The appliance breakdown is created using a process called energy disaggregation. This technology analyzes the patterns in your home’s electricity use and estimates which appliances are using energy at different times.
For example, your heating system uses electricity differently than your refrigerator or water heater. By recognizing these unique patterns, the software can estimate how much energy each appliance or system is using.
Because these are estimates based on meter data, the results may not be exact, but they can provide valuable insights into where your energy is going.
For the most accurate insights, take a few minutes to complete the “Build Your Home Profile” survey! Learn how here >
These tools are built specifically for our standard residential members (those without solar net metering).
**Currently, these tools are not available for commercial members or residential members with solar net metering.**
As the technology continues to evolve, we hope to be able to offer similar insights to more members in the future!
If you have solar net metering, your home uses a combination of electricity generated by your solar panels and electricity supplied through the grid. This makes it difficult for the technology to accurately estimate how much energy individual appliances are using based solely on meter data.
Understanding where your electricity is being used is the first step toward lowering your energy costs.
The Energy Breakdown tools can help you identify which appliances and systems use the most energy in your home. You may discover that heating and cooling are driving a large portion of your usage, or that an appliance is using more energy than expected.
By better understanding your homne’s energy use, you can:
While these tools won’t reduce your bill on their own, they can help you make informed decisions that may lead to energy savings and lower monthly costs.
The Energy Breakdown chart is easily accessed on your SmartHub homepage. It estimates the appliance breakdown of your monthly energy usage in kilowatt-hours (kWh), based on data from your electric meter.
The dollar amounts shown here don’t include taxes, the fixed Customer Charge, or the Demand Charge, so they may differ from your total bill.
The “Always On” category includes devices that use electricity even when not in use, such as TVs, chargers, lamps, and other electronics left plugged in.
For the most accurate breakdown of future data, remember to Build Your Home Profile under the Usage tab.
The Energy Detail chart is located under the Usage tab in SmartHub.
It provides a more detailed estimate of your energy usage by appliance type over time, overlaid with average monthly temperatures to get a sense of how heating and cooling impacts your bill.
Complete the detailed “Build Your Home Profile” survey to help ensure the accuracy of the data in your Energy Detail / Breakdown.
The survey is located under the “Usage” tab in SmartHub and should only take a few minutes to complete. You may skip any question that you don’t know the answer to.
The survey asks simple questions about your home and the equipment you use, such as your heating system, cooling system, and major appliances. This additional information helps improve the accuracy of future energy-use estimates.
Please note: Completing the survey will only improve future data and analysis. It will not change past usage data or historical graphs. After submitting your profile, check back in a few weeks to see more personalized insights!
Based on your home’s Energy Detail estimates, this section provides you with personalized tips that may help you save on your upcoming electric bills.
