How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

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Karl
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:04 am

How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

Post by Karl »

Hi,

new to this forum, please pardon me if this topic is covered already - and please send me there.
I have one EKM Omnimeter II v3 running, with EKM-Push,
and also with the RS485-to-USB converter.
Push is for normal operation, USB only for configuring the meter, per laptop and EKM Dash software.
When USB is in use, I power down the Push to avoid data collisions.

I need to set up the Off-Peak, Mid-Peak and On-peak times in the Eastern US time zone,
i.e. in Summer, i.e. from May 1st to October 31st:
0:00 to 7:00 = Off Peak
7:00 to 11:00 = Mid-Peak
11:00 to 17:00 = On-Peak (when everyone uses their ACs)
17:00 to 19:00 = Mid Peak
19:00 to 24:00 = Off peak

In winter, i.e. November 1st to April 30th, this changes to:
0:00 to 7:00 = Off Peak
7:00 to 11:00 = On-Peak (when everyone uses their heaters)
11:00 to 17:00 = Mid-Peak
17:00 to 19:00 = On Peak (when everyone uses their heaters again)
19:00 to 24:00 = Off peak

Question: How do I best set up the meter to do this?
I could use two seasons, but I am afraid that with the Daylight-Saving-Time change on November 2, 2014 and/or March 8, 2015, the meter will get out synch by one hour.
Should I use four seasons, to accommodate each combination (like "Winter, EST", "Winter, EDT", "Summer, EDT" and "Summer, EST") ?
Or, does the meter automatically switch between USA Standard Time and Daylight-Saving time?

Second question: Should I set the meter's internal clock to Eastern time, or is it better (more transparent) to set it to straight UTC?

The problem is that I can't remotely change any of these settings over the EKM-Push, but I won't be present locally when they are needed. Hence I am looking for a configuration that works for the next 12 months.

Thanks,
Karl
Jameson
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Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2011 7:42 pm
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
Contact:

Re: How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

Post by Jameson »

Hi Karl,

Very good question. This does get tricky precisely like you say, because you cannot yet change the meter time with the EKM Push, and the meter does not recognize daylight savings.

I will try my best to help you out, please double check my assumptions.

For Summer, i.e. from May 1st to October 31st
Screenshot 2014-07-28 13.14.18.png
Screenshot 2014-07-28 13.14.18.png (62.24 KiB) Viewed 16789 times
In this case, Rate 1 is Mid Peak, Rate 2 is On-Peak, Rate 3 is Off peak

===

November 1st to April 30th
Screenshot 2014-07-28 12.45.18.png
Screenshot 2014-07-28 12.45.18.png (67.03 KiB) Viewed 16789 times
I used the same rates Rate 1 is Mid Peak, Rate 2 is On-Peak, Rate 3 is Off peak

===

You would then do this for schedule 3 also. But they will have to be set off by one hour. If my thinking is right you would set the meter Tariff start times forward by one hour. So what was TOU1 at 7:00 is now TOU1 at 8:00.
Screenshot 2014-07-28 14.18.03.png
Screenshot 2014-07-28 14.18.03.png (63.58 KiB) Viewed 16785 times
===
For schedules I would set up 3 different schedules. Summer (#1), Winter Daylight savings (#3), and Winter Non-daylight savings (#2)
Screenshot 2014-07-28 12.55.08.png
Screenshot 2014-07-28 12.55.08.png (37.67 KiB) Viewed 16789 times
Phew! Mind bender.
Jameson
EKM METERING
http://www.ekmmetering.com
831.425.7371
Karl
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:04 am

Re: How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

Post by Karl »

Great reply! Thank you for the screen shots - that makes the mind-bending more of a pleasure. Thank you, -- Karl
Karl
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:04 am

Time-of-Use setup done - now time discrepancy question

Post by Karl »

Hi Jameson,
I double-checked your assumptions, and find them correct.
This case needs 3 schedules, and 4 seasons.
It also needs one more schedule for the weekends and holidays, which I didn't mention yet: They are all-day-long Off-Peak.
The "Holidays" and "Schedules" tab made that possible and straight forward.

Thanks again for the screenshots.
Schedule 3 has start times of 8:00, 12:00 18:00 and 20:00 (instead of the actual 7:00, 11:00, 17:00 and 19:00), as you showed. That assumes the meter's clock stays year-round at EDT, Daylight-Saving-Time.
That's currently the best choice. However, it books the 0:00 to 1:00 consumption on the wrong day on 127 out of 365 days.
If I set it to EST, Standard time, instead, it would get the 23:00 to 24:00 consumption onto the wrong day on 238 out of 365 days per year - that's worse.
If I set it to UTC, these wrong-day periods would be even longer: 4 or 5 hours would go to the wrong date on every day of the year.

Hence the best solution will be the remote clock correction, twice a year, per EKM-Push, which you indicated elsewhere as something available soon.
I'll be happily awaiting this.

The electricity company, when asked, said that they change their smart meters from Standard Time to Daylight Saving Time per remote command, in real time. So for a precise match, I want to do the same.

Now a new question: Where do 4 minutes time discrepancy come from?

When I changed the meter's clock by about 5h 43' today (to get it to EDT), nothing changed on the times shown in the EKM-Widget data downloads.
Those EKM-Widget data downloads show California time, it seems - but why are they about 4 minutes ahead of PDT?
I tried the xml downloads, too, per http://io.ekmpush.com/<My_Meter_Number_ ... y_Key_Here>
The data returned reveals a similar time difference, of about 4' 51"ahead of actual time, ± 5 seconds uncertainty among my clocks.

For example, the record retrieved at 17:59:01 EDT = 21:59:01 UTC, ± 5 seconds uncertainty,
shows seq="1406671492257", which translates, I assume, to 29-Jul-2014 22:04:52 UTC.
(seq="1406671492257" = 1406671492.257 seconds past 1-Jan-1970 0:00 UTC, right?)
That's 4' 51" into the future, give or take up to 5 seconds. The time difference seems to be steady since at least a week, when I first noticed it.

Thanks again, -- Karl
Jameson
Posts: 860
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2011 7:42 pm
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
Contact:

Re: How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

Post by Jameson »

If I set it to EST, Standard time, instead, it would get the 23:00 to 24:00 consumption onto the wrong day on 238 out of 365 days per year - that's worse.
If I set it to UTC, these wrong-day periods would be even longer: 4 or 5 hours would go to the wrong date on every day of the year.
I dont understand this part of your post. The Off peak rate is actually from 19:00 on Day 1 to 7:00 on Day 2, so I dont think an hour slide one way or the other with Daylight Savings should affect this.
Now a new question: Where do 4 minutes time discrepancy come from?
This is from our Push servers. They are off by a few minutes. The EKM Dash reports the time from the Push server time (not from the meter time in the case of Push connected meters only). We will be fixing this when we transition to "Push2"
shows seq="1406671492257", which translates, I assume, to 29-Jul-2014 22:04:52 UTC.
Yes this is correct.

Thanks for your help, I appreciate your approach and attention to details. Keep it up!
Jameson
EKM METERING
http://www.ekmmetering.com
831.425.7371
BlueHornet
Posts: 56
Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2011 10:42 pm
Location: Victoria, Australia

Re: How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

Post by BlueHornet »

I'm particularly interested in this thread as I have not been able to set up my TOU correctly using DASH!

I can't seem to get my head around how they work in DASH, even following the screen shots Jameson sent me (see below) which I have copied exactly (with the exception of correcting the Schedule 2 rate to Rate 2), I still cannot get anything other than T1 to record the TOU data nor does the meter indicate a T2 usage at the prescribed times on the weekend. The meter TOU registers behave exactly the same on the weekend as they would on weekdays - TOU - T1 07:00 to 23:00 & TOU - T2 23:00 to 07:00
The weekend Schedule is not overriding the weekday schedules as the settings ("successfully set") imply.

When I set the "Rates" Schedules and times and "Set" to save each step, everything indicates that it working correctly - the times are set and the response is that the new settings were successful but this is not translating to the correct settings in the meter for weekend TOU2.

DASH Version 1.4.3.3
Omnimeter Pulse V4, Firmware 15

"QUOTE"
From Jameson:

I would think of this as 2 schedules.

You have weekdays (schedule 1) and weekend (schedule 2)

Give the attached screenshots a try.

Thanks,

Jameson
ScreenShot 1.png
ScreenShot 1.png (33.81 KiB) Viewed 16749 times
ScreenShot 2.png
ScreenShot 2.png (49.81 KiB) Viewed 16749 times
ScreenShot 3.png
ScreenShot 3.png (24.86 KiB) Viewed 16749 times

Just to reiterate my TOU requirements:

Peak Rates apply between
7am and 11 pm (07:00 to 23:00) Monday to Friday

Off Peak Rates apply at all other times
(So this is between 23:00 to 07:00 on Weekdays and All Weekend 23:00 Friday Night to 07:00 Monday morning)


Is it something I've missed

Edit: "Some misleading and omitted information"
Last edited by BlueHornet on Sun Aug 03, 2014 3:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Karl
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:04 am

Re: How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

Post by Karl »

BlueHornet wrote:...I still cannot get anything other than T1 to record the TOU data nor does the meter indicate a T2 ...
P.S.: now I see one detail that's odd, in the screenshots:
You define Rate 1 for On-Peak, and Rate 2 for Off-Peak, including Weekends.
If so, the Schedule 2 screenshot should not show Rate 1, but rather Rate 2.
If it is as on the screenshot i.e. Schedule 2, Rate 1, Start Time 0:01, of course you'll get all energy consumed on the weekend in the T1 count, and none of it in T2

==== Original reply ====
It seems to work for me just fine. In my case, T1 is Off-Peak (lowest price), T2 is Mid-Peak, T3 = On-Peak (highest price). Weekends and Holidays should only have T1, whereas daytimes should have T2 or T3.

Here some data from Saturday:
(raw data from the .csv download under http://widget.ekmmetering.com/EKM2/?rea ... eterNumber>
Time____________ PT __ T1_PT __ T2_PT __T3_PT
8/2/2014 18:27 __ 3500 __ 2254 __ 1234 __ 12
8/2/2014 18:26 __ 3499 __ 2253 __ 1234 __ 12
8/2/2014 15:41 __ 3499 __ 2253 __ 1234 __ 12
8/2/2014 15:40 __ 3498 __ 2252 __ 1234 __ 12
There was little load, so only two steps in "PT" (Energy, Total kWh. Don't call it "Power Total")
On 15:41 it stepped from 349.9 to 349.9 kWh and then at 18:27 from 349.9 to 350.0.
It's good that both steps also accumulate on "T1_PT" (Energy, Total kWh, under my Rate 1), because this was a Saturday.
Had it been Monday through Friday, these should have registered to "T3_PT" or "T2_PT", respectively.
I am confident that this works, because there was zero in "T3_PT" before I set up TOU, and now there is "12", i.e. 1.2 kWh.
"T1_PT" and "T2_PT" accumulated under the out-of-the-box configuration my Omnimeter II v3 had, i.e. before I set up anything specific under TOU.
BlueHornet wrote: ... Is it something I've missed ...
I am just guessing, but did you set up a Season? Something like "Season 1, start day 1-January" ? In my case there are three Seasons.
My weekend Schedule looks just as your Schedule 2 - except that I dared a Start Time of 0:00 instead of 0:01 - but that should not matter.

Karl
Last edited by Karl on Sun Aug 03, 2014 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
Karl
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:04 am

Re: How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

Post by Karl »

Jameson,
thanks for the "Push servers are off a few minutes"reply, and the "Push2" lookout.
Jameson wrote:
If I set it to EST, Standard time, instead, it would get the 23:00 to 24:00 consumption onto the wrong day on 238 out of 365 days per year - that's worse.
If I set it to UTC, these wrong-day periods would be even longer: 4 or 5 hours would go to the wrong date on every day of the year.
I don't understand this part of your post. The Off peak rate is actually from 19:00 on Day 1 to 7:00 on Day 2, so I don't think an hour slide one way or the other with Daylight Savings should affect this.
I admit, this part sounds quite theoretic, but it might affect billing.
The rates will of course be correct, but they get applied to the wrong day. That doesn't matter for most days (as billing is monthly), but once every month it does.
The meter will be used to bill a tenant. Imagine the tenant throws a hairdryer party and consumes 14 kWh from midnight to 1:00 Daylight Saving time, on April 1st (that's 23:00 to 24:00 on March 31st on the Omnimeter set to Standard time).
The utility company will include those 14 kWh in in the April bill, but the tenant will get them in the March bill - and might take issue about that.
Therefore I must hope that the tenant doesn't throw such parties nor takes issue with such things. That's why I look forward to the new Push version which "will include [... v.4 ... and] meter settings integration" that should enable changing the Omnimeter's clock right when the utility company changes their smartmeter clocks (from Standard to Daylight Saving time or vice versa).

Greetings,
Karl
BlueHornet
Posts: 56
Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2011 10:42 pm
Location: Victoria, Australia

Re: How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

Post by BlueHornet »

Hi Karl and thank you for your input.

I posted the message in a hurry and realise now that I left out some information that would be important as well as some misleading information.

The T2 schedules that wont work are only for the weekends - in other words the weekend rate continues to behave like a weekday schedule, it appears that the software is not overriding the weekday schedules when weekend schedules are set.

I did in fact change the rate for Schedule 2 to "Rate 2" as I realised that this was an error but this made no difference, the weekend schedules do not get applied and the TOU continues to operate as per the weekday Schedule 1.

I have tried several different Schedule manipulations including those suggested by Jameson, however none seem to to be able to set the weekend rate schedule to my requirements.

Cheers,
Gary
Jameson
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Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2011 7:42 pm
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
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Re: How do I best set up the Time-of-Use options?

Post by Jameson »

Hi Gary,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We will look into the "Weekends" setting and see if there is an issue with the Dash.

It brings up the need to display the meter's day of the week somewhere in the Dash (added it to the roadmap).

Thanks for your help.
Jameson
EKM METERING
http://www.ekmmetering.com
831.425.7371
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