in Green, X-Geek

Tracking the sun (and more) with eGauge

The eGuage (upper right) installed in our electrical panel.

The eGuage (upper right) installed in our electrical panel.


I found out this morning that Southern Energy will be installing our solar panels on Monday! After a perfect, sun-filled afternoon today I was daydreaming of how our home’s electric meter might soon be spinning backwards!

As part of our installation we’ve purchased a power meter to track our electricity generation and consumption. It’s called eGauge and has become surprisingly addictive since I turned it on this afternoon, providing instantly-updated data through a web browser. Our solar panels aren’t installed yet but once they are, I’ll be able to see a ream of information on our electricity use.

Independent of our solar installation, I was recently exploring options for monitoring our home’s electric use at the branch level: that is, each individual circuit breaker. There were a few products I found but it seemed the cost was around $1500. I was delighted to see the eGauge is $760 for the whole kit! The one we now have has spots to monitor up to 12 circuits, three of which are used for our solar system. We can, however, expand eGauge to fully cover our branch circuits if we choose to.

Whether you get solar or not, I highly recommend you check out eGauge. Knowing how you’re using electricity will make you wiser in your energy use!

If you’d like to see what eGauge can do, check out this demo site.