UK 3-phase residential with export

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MrStuff
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Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:34 am

UK 3-phase residential with export

Post by MrStuff » Fri Nov 24, 2017 10:50 am

I am interested in adding an electricity monitoring system to my house in the UK and I am considering using a GreenEye Monitor for this. The electrical configuration for the house, and the individual breaker ratings are shown in the attached diagram. All circuits are either single phase at 230V or 3-phase at 230V per phase.

The total comes to 33 circuits in total (counting 3 circuits for each of the 3-phase connections, which is too many for the GEM. However, I am quite happy to combine the smoke alarm circuit with the MVHR circuit using parallel current transformers (both circuits are relatively low-power and are expected to be pretty much constant load).

The primary 3-phase distribution box is around 5 to 6 metres from the consumer units. I would be looking to locate the GEM near to the consumer units (where there is space in the cupboard and a convenient mains socket) and run the 3-phase transformers over longer cables to the GEM.

I do not propose to try to separate the different loads in the garage/garden even in the case of a future electric vehicle. I think it would be relatively easy to differentiate the vehicle charging from other loads due to the scale. There is only one significant consumer on this circuit - the pump for the rainwater harvesting that consumes up to 1kW when running, but only runs for a few minutes per day on average. Everything else is small handtools and lighting.

I will probably also want to put a pulse generator onto my gas meter and connect this into the system for monitoring at some point. I don't have an accessible water meter and would not see much point of adding a pulse-counter for the electricity meter given the other monitoring in place (other than for correlation purposes.)

I have not yet decided on the server to capture the measurements. I do currently have a 24*7 server running which I could use to capture the data, on the other hand my longer term plans would be to shut this server down overnight or during absences from the house, so a dedicated box may be more appropriate. (I am not adverse to doing this with a small linux box, e.g. Raspberry Pi, depending on cost.)

I would like to be able to detect excess export electricity from my solar array and redirect this through the load controller to the immersions in my thermal store to avoid the use of gas for water and space heating when solar is available. The load controller is driven by a Loxone home automation system so I would need to put a link in place between the GEM/monitoring server and the Loxone system to determine the available power and modulate the immersion power accordingly. This would best be done on a phase by phase basis (I have two phases for generation that have no other consumption in the house and I am suspicious whether my incoming meter is properly aggregating consumption and export across all three phases).

I would also be interested in some other possible integrations, e.g. identifying when the hob is on and using this to turn on the extractor hood, and possibly other use cases.

Any thoughts or suggestions on this setup/proposal, either whether it is viable and/or can be done in a more optimal way?

Thanks,
Mark.
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HardHouse - ElectricalDiagram 20171121.pdf
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ben
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Re: UK 3-phase residential with export

Post by ben » Fri Nov 24, 2017 10:59 am

Mark,

I just sent you a reply to your email a few minutes ago.
Ben
Brultech Research Inc.
E: ben(at)brultech.com
Teken
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Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:09 pm
Location: The Bad Lands

Re: UK 3-phase residential with export

Post by Teken » Fri Nov 24, 2017 2:34 pm

Hello Mark,

If you so decide to purchase a Brultech GEM the obvious choice to track all of the metrics coming from the GEM is the Dash Box (DB). If this is something you will consider in the future I would be very interested in seeing you track your efforts in the *Projects Forum*.

As most of the installs are from North America 120 / 240 single split phase.

I love to read about our brothers across the pond! :mrgreen:

Cheers!
Teken . . .

My ongoing projects thread: http://www.brultech.com/community/viewt ... ?f=2&t=929
Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.paypal.me/Teken https://gfinotify.com/ Discount Code: PC10
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