No more excuses not to monitor your energy use if you’re a Control4 user.

Software company Eragy has released its Energy Monitoring Plus app for Control4 systems. The app was shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and replaces Eragy’s previous energy monitoring software, with several notable upgrades.

Eragy is showing a lot of promise, not just as an energy monitoring application but one that has the potential to provide homeowners and business owners true savings on their energy bills and integrate with a control system like Control4’s to automate energy-saving events.

The Energy Monitoring Plus app provides Control4 users with the ability to monitor both their whole house or building energy consumption as well as energy used by individual circuits within their homes or buildings.

Energy Monitoring Plus supports both the TED 5000 and eGauge power sensors.  Some notable features include:

• Circuit-level energy monitoring via the eGauge power sensor.  Up to 4 eGauge units can be installed in a single system, supporting up to 48 circuits of energy monitoring.
• The eGauge power sensor also supports 3-phase energy monitoring and commercial applications, enabling Eragy dealers to offer energy monitoring services to commercial clients.
• Monitoring of solar, wind, gas, and other energy generating sources.  Users can monitor electricity that is generated in real-time and access historical energy and cost data for these systems.
• Circuit-level energy monitoring via the TED 5000 power sensor.  Up to 4 TED 5000 MTU’s can be used in a system, providing support for whole-house/building monitoring and up to 3 additional circuits.
• Updated user web portal with easier navigation and “dashboard” that includes high-level information on their energy usage, cost, system status, and other valuable information.

The new web portal includes the following enhancements:

• Real-time displays of energy usage and cost, circuit level displays and alert configurations.
• Improvements in the Eragy Utility Rate Engine and support for more utility rate structures.
• Support for multiple circuit types including: Grid, Device and Generating.  “Generating” circuits support solar, wind and gas powered generation systems.
• Usage and cost analytics for each circuit and circuit type.
• Alerts and charts/reports for each circuit, in addition to whole house alerts and charts/reports.
• Energy usage charts now include overlay of outdoor temperature data (currently for U.S. locations only). Support for Control4 thermostat monitoring and alerts.

The Energy Monitoring Plus application and service is available from Control4 dealers throughout North America via Control4’s 4Store Application Marketplace. Eragy’s application and service is priced at $199.

True Energy Management to Come?

A valid critique of energy monitoring systems is that they don’t do anything but monitor your energy use. The world awaits energy monitoring systems that can integrate with home controllers to automatically enact power-saving events throughout a home or business.

Keep a close eye on Eragy, however.

The company is working toward Intelligent Home Energy Management solutions that enable a Control4 system to dim lights or perform other functions if, say, a preprogrammed ceiling on energy use is reached. The company also has designs for high-current relays that allow the system to shut down appliances automatically.

Eragy’s also plans software to allow homeowners to see the benefits of switching to different electric utility rate structures to save some serious money, if the utility offers alternative rate structures. Some utilities offer Time of Use pricing, in which electricity is priced higher at “peak load” times of the day. And some have “tiered” pricing, in which you’re charged a much higher rate as soon as you cross a threshold of energy use. Eragy can help homeowners and their electronics installers decide which pricing structure is right for them, depending on their energy use—and automate functions to cut power at peak load times, for instance, to save money.

Steven Castle - Contributing Writer

Steven Castle is Electronic House's managing editor. he has been writing about consumer electronics, homes and energy efficiency topics for two decades. He is also the co-founder of GreenTech Advocates.