How to Measure Home Power Usage

Easiest way to understand your home energy consumption is to look at your electricity bill. Those bills have many positions (as utility companies are there for profit), but you are interested in position with your meter reading or actual value of consumed kWh (kilo Watt hours – energy units).

If you have day and night tariff, you should see both of them separately. Keep in mind that not every bill can show actual readings and some can be estimated (to be corrected on next actual reading where physical reading of the meter takes place).

If you like to measure your energy consumption you need to “sense” what is flowing through your electrical cables. Easiest way to do so is to install clamp meter.

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If you are consuming and generating at the same time, then measurement is more complicated and beside “sensing” current you need to measure the voltage to recognize if you are importing or exporting energy (when you importing voltage is in phase with current and if you exporting voltage is shifted exactly opposite to current).