Consumption control: how to monitor and reduce consumption within the Smart Home

A smart electrical system can help reduce the home’s electricity consumption, for long-term economic savings and in line with energy efficiency goals. Understanding and managing the power produced and exported in a Smart Home system allows you to turn comprehensive information into new consumption habits and automation of utilities that lead to more conscious and efficient resource management.

Each home is equipped with a meter installed by the energy supplier, which only allows for an aggregated reading, often consulted afterwards via bills or the online customer area. To control your home’s electricity consumption in depth, you need a more advanced measurement system that offers greater detail.

A real-time home electricity consumption monitoring system can be installed directly in the consumer unit, so that all loads can be monitored. Alternatively, smart power sockets, i.e. smart built-in sockets or so-called smart plugs, can be used in traditional electrical sockets like a normal adaptor without the need to intervene on the system. They enable consumption control of individual connected devices, according to the desired level of precision.

Managing a Smart Home system is easier and more intuitive with user interfaces, such as the Home Gateway app by GEWISS, which allows you to check your home’s energy parameters at any time, as well as manage lighting, shutters, scenarios and temperature. Apps for controlling electrical power consumption also allow you to set timers and logical functions to improve efficiency, customising usage in accordance with the occupants’ habits.

Key benefits of this approach include:

• ability to remotely check the status of the home via smartphone, acting promptly on any wastage;
• detailed and historical data to understand consumption habits and identify peaks;
• notifications and alerts to receive warnings in the event of abnormal consumption;
• integration between measurement tools and other Smart Home products, to build efficiency-driven automations;
• If a photovoltaic system is present, it is also possible to monitor the energy produced and exported to the grid.

To calculate electricity consumption correctly, you must first familiarise yourself with the kilowatt-hour (kWh), the unit of measurement that indicates the energy consumed by a one-kilowatt device left on for an hour. Reading the bill allows you to monitor this figure and distinguish between estimated and actual consumption, whilst also taking note of the breakdown into time bands (F1, F2 and F3).

Because the cost of energy varies depending on when it is drawn from the grid, learning how to shift the use of the most energy-hungry appliances towards the most advantageous time bands is the most immediate strategy for saving on your electricity bill. A smart consumption management system facilitates this process, because it provides both the necessary awareness and the ability to activate devices at times of lower rates.

As mentioned, there are different types of solutions to monitor electricity consumption:

• a power consumption meter, installed directly in the main consumer unit, provides a precise indication of the total consumption of the home or specific circuits;
• smart plugs, in addition to powering the connected device, track its specific power draw, allowing inefficient devices to be identified and their on/off status checked remotely;
• an energy management platform, a software solution that integrates data from all devices in the Smart Home to give you an overview of the building, via an app such as the Home Gateway.

All of these solutions allow you to see your electricity consumption in real time, eliminating uncertainty related to estimated readings and providing a clear basis for an energy-efficiency update to your home.

Reducing environmental impact and operational costs with the GEWISS ecosystem is possible thanks to solutions that combine smart management and smart control of power consumption. The approach is based on the ability to measure data and the use of intuitive interfaces that provide centralised control of consumption.

Key technologies and strategies include:

• Smart Home System Pura or ChoruSmart ranges, which allow you to coordinate lights, shutters and temperature to avoid waste;
• the creation of custom scenarios that, with a single gesture, switch off all utilities when leaving the house;
• Using a smart thermostat such as Thermo ICE Wi-Fi for remote heating control, to prevent waste when the house is empty;
• the management of loads, which in the event of overload disconnects non-priority loads to avoid service interruptions;
• LED lamp relamping and the integration of motion and twilight sensors to optimise the use of artificial light;
• ReStart devices, which automatically reset the residual current device in the event of an untimely trip, ensuring service continuity for refrigerators and safety systems.

Finally, the use of GEWISS measurement tools enables you to quantify how much devices consume, displaying the data on your smartphone for a better understanding of energy use in the different time bands.