TED 5000 and Google PowerMeter on iGoogle is Live

Google PowerMeter iGoogle

I was thrilled when I learned Google PowerMeter and TED 5000 were going to be teaming up to bring me my energy consumption on my iGoogle page. I have had the TED 5000 installed since July and I just installed my TED 5000 updates and I have the power meter running on my iGoogle! Unfortunately, unless you have a TED 5000 or have a utility that has teamed up with Google PowerMeter then you can't get this nifty widget. So buy the TED 5000 or bug your utility!

After you have the updates installed for the TED you can log in to Footprints (the TED 5000 software) and go to "Edit --> Activate Google PowerMeter". You will have to have a Google account to access the iGoogle page. If you are already logged into your Google account then it should be smooth sailing from this point.

Activate Google Power Meter

The widget appeared very quickly, but it did take a few minutes for the initial data to start appearing. Be calm while the data uploads! It looks like the update rate of the data is every 10 mins.

My favorite feature is using my iPhone to pull up iGoogle and view the Google PowerMeter widget! I currently have the TED 5000 iPhone app but I have to be in my home and connected to the network. With the iGoogle PowerMeter Widget, I can access the TED 5000 data from anywhere I have a phone connection!

Google Power meter TED 5000 data on iPhone

You can also enlarge the PowerMeter widget so you can get a better view of the data. I like the "Compared to other" bar at the bottom so you can see how your home is performing. It looks bare on mine right now only because it has just been installed.

**Update - 10/28/09 - I removed the old data picture from when I initially had it up and running and I've updated the picture now that I have more data. Below is the expanded data you get when you click on the PowerMeter in iGoogle. Google recently added an "expected usage" bar at the very bottom. The spikes that occur are at night when we get home from work and in the morning when we're getting ready.

Google PowerMeter Expanded

I'm signing off now to go experiment with the Google PowerMeter and let it gather some more data. I'll update this post with more information soon...

I've had a few weeks to play with this, and I am pretty excited. If you save your iGoogle page as a bookmark on your iPhone you can pull it up and show people the PowerMeter and show them your home's energy usage in real time. I use it to demonstrate the power of home energy monitoring.

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Google power meter iGoogle

Google power meter iphone

PowerMeter

ted 5000

TED 5000 iphone app

Comments

Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/14/2010 - 16:46

David, you probably figured it out already. Can't imagine the 200 amp cabinets are split phase with one half phase in each cabinet. You will never access 220v or full phase. The MTU needs to see both legs of the service if it is to be accurate. I have read that some clamp on clips were manufactured marked wrong (the red dot on the wrong side). Could one of yours be backwards?

Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/19/2010 - 16:11

I ordered a ted 5000 on jan. 4th 2010. have not heard a thing since then. Anyone have a guess as to how long its takes them to ship my order?

Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/21/2009 - 06:20

Hello! I am very interested in Google Powermeter and TED5000. In fact I live in Tokyo,Japan. Could anyone please give me a rundown on how TED passes the data of energy usage to the Google Powermeter, and if it is necessary for users to equip some kind of Zigbee peripheral on PC by themselves?

Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/01/2010 - 12:29

I've installed the ted5000 and found that unless I have something configured incorrectly, the system is not doing the net metering calculations correctly. For example today my solar pv is outputting 1200watts, so mtu2 shows -1200. MTU1 is connected to the input of the home's main panel, and it is showing 677 watts. The net is displayed as the difference between the two; displayed as -544 watts. This net math calculation assumes the pv has its own connection to utility (in parallel with the home's load) versus being in series with the home's load which is how grid tied PV systems are typically configured. So the mtu1 reading is the net (its seeing the input from the pv source and either feeding in more power or putting power back to the grid depending on the home's instantaneous load. In the example above the net power to the home is 677watts, meaning the total energy load in the home is 1877 watts. So have I got something messed up with my config or doesn't net metering work on the ted5000 if your power generation feeds the home's utility panel versus being in parallel with it? jim

Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/20/2009 - 06:52

Great comments. I also have the TED5000 w/Solar panels and have been disappointed with the progress on the NET metering (though to be honest, I was told when I purchased TED that the NET metering functionality was not complete). I'm just surprised they haven't made more progress; of course, they've probably been busting their humps trying to make the Google deal happen. My solar inverters are monitored (they're Enphase inverters) so I can already get some data about daily production...the problem was I couldn't get hourly production data (I'm on a 9am to 9pm peak utility rate so knowing when the solar energy is produced allows me to calculate my true savings). Also, when they replaced my existing smart meter with the new NET meter, I lost the ability to monitor my usage on an hourly basis (the NET meter is not smart). I could also not look at any history of usage....TED resolved all of these problems and more. One of the neatest things I've been able to do is export the data from my NET meter (MTU0) and solar (MTU1) into Excel. I can then calculate the difference between generation and metering so I can see what my consumption is. When I do this with minute data, I can clearly see when things turn on and off (like the water heater, pool pump, etc.) It's helped me to identify things that are running during the day when they shouldn't be (the timer on my pool pump went bad once and the pump was running during the day). It's not real time like the TED graphs....but then again, the TED graphs don't work with the net metering (neither do the profiles, from what I can tell). When i do this with hourly data, I can clearly see what my cost/savings are for generation, consumption and NET. As Tony suggested, I will never get a pay back from TED, but my inner-geek is smiling..TED gives me all the data I want, I just have to manipulate it a little.

Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/17/2010 - 20:38

Installed the TED 5000. Installed the MTU with the Red, Black and White wires per the instructions, but got no voltage or KWH signals. Heard from another post that 99% of the time you should just cap the Red wire. With the Red wire capped, the voltage readings are only about 60 volts. Can any one tell me what the problem is? I have two 200 Amp panels. Could each panel be on a single phase?

Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/13/2009 - 07:47

I’m in the same boat. I had solar installed in August and I installed TED 5000 in September. It’s definitely better than nothing and I now have a tool to track production and reduce my current usage. I saw another product http://egauge.net/ which looks good but I think I’m going to stick with the TED. Have you gotten a technical contact at TED and do they know the list of the problems? I haven’t called them yet.

Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/12/2009 - 18:55

I'm using my TED 5000's API to update twitter with my power usage: http://twitter.com/jgarland79power

Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 10/11/2009 - 06:40

I guess it is sort of a cool addition. As others have noted, the footprints interface has a lot more information. But for the day-to-day usage, the little wireless display is more useful.

Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/26/2009 - 06:15

Ken - I have just ordered the TED5000 for solar systems. In reading all the negative press regarding the product and it's ability to measure consumption - I was thinking that this was a poor purchase. Your post stating that the data is there and you just need to manipulate it a bit using Excel has gotten my hopes up. :-) Is the real problem with TED5000 and solar in the graphing? Perhaps someone can utilize the API and write some code that automatically downloads the actual data, then graph it the way we want?

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