Monitoring electricity usage (updated 17th September 2020)
/The use of an energy monitor can help residents monitor their electricity consumption and see how much kW an appliance uses when in operation. Geo produces two types of energy monitor . The Geo Minim LED energy monitor users a sensor that is fitted over the pulse light (red flashing light on your meter(s) to count the pulses and register usage. The CT-clip sensor version reads the electrical current going through the live cable(s) of the electricity meter. There is also an Owl monitor that uses clip-sensors and has the advantage of a battery-operated display.
The monitors’ wireless transmitter has a range of up to 30m so the display unit can be positioned where convenient.
The display tracks daily and weekly usage, holding one month’s history (today./yesterday, this week/last week, this month/last month). It provides you with similar information as a ‘smart meter’.
The monitor enables you to see the ‘background usage’ - ie, when you don’t have any electrical appliances running other than ‘always-on’ items including fridge/freezer, modem, devices on stand-by (sky box, printer etc) and the trace heating. Once you know the typical ‘background’ usage you can then monitor the increase in consumption caused by turning on appliances etc and checking the display.
If you have two meter readings on your electricity bill (R1 and R4 - please see the electricity page for further information) you will need to:
purchase an additional clamp sensor for the clamp-sensor models. The clamps need to be installed on the ‘live’ cables in the fuse box. It can be trial and error locating the two relevant cables - you need to switch on R1 appliances (eg, an oven) and R4 appliances (eg, FCU in heating mode) and check that the display.
Buy two Geo Minim LED monitors and place the LED sensors over the LED pulse light on the main and slave meters. Unfortunately each monitor can only have one LED input. We recommend using blu-tack or tape to attach the sensor as the supplied sticker tends to fall off over time. If you install just one LED sensor you will either be monitoring R1 usage or R4, and not total usage.
*Please note: energy monitors are not designed to replace your supply meter, which are highly accurate, but they provide a good guide of your real-time energy consumption.