Chris and his partner were conscious of the growing energy costs in Victoria. Even after installing a 5.2kW solar system, the energy price increases were reflected in their bills. They had a focus on understanding their highest energy-consuming appliances and wanted to investigate which appliance was tripping their home's circuit breaker as well as gain more visibility into their solar consumption. 

In trying both their inverter solar monitoring and an independent energy monitor they could not find the data they needed to start making smarter energy decisions. So when Chris heard about Powersensor’s whole-of-house and appliance-level and solar monitoring capabilities, he decided to make the switch. 

Chris was immediately impressed with how easy it was to get his Powersensor Advanced Solar Solution up and running, and installed it himself within 30 minutes.  

"Powersensor has been a game changer in terms of how I measure and understand how much electricity my solar panels are generating, as well as my home energy consumption. The visibility I get from multiple different data sources is invaluable."

For the first month, Chris monitored his Powersensor app daily, but as he continued to use the solution, he identified the patterns of his household energy usage and solar production. 

But the solar data wasn’t the only revelation that Chris had thanks to Powersensor; “I didn’t realise just how much energy certain home appliances consume, especially our clothes dryer.” 

He noticed that sometimes when multiple high-load appliances were running at the same time, it would cause the meter to trip at home. He knew their dryer consumed a lot of energy, but he only discovered it was too much for their home to handle when he checked the Powersensor app.  “I would turn on the dryer, go into the app, and see that it was pushing our home’s electricity usage over the edge,” he recalled. For a while they limited their dryer usage, keeping an eye on Powersensor every time to ensure they wouldn’t overload the meter. This was not ideal as they had a newborn which required lots of washing and drying. 

When the old, inefficient dryer finally met an untimely end, Chris and his partner were able to use their learnings from Powersensor to make a more sustainable choice in replacing it. “When it came to replacing [the dryer], we made the informed decision to spend more money on an energy-efficient heat pump dryer, which was about three times the price of a vented dryer. But with what I have learned from Powersensor, the money we'll save in energy bills will shorten the payback period and make the purchase well worthwhile."

Making the switch to Powersensor has propelled Chris and his family forward in their energy-efficient journey by providing them with all of the data they need to maximise their solar investment. “Powersensor has already paid for itself given how much we’ve learned and saved from the data it provides'' said Chris, stating that for homes with solar, the data and visibility provided by Powersensor is the easiest way to not only monitor your solar but also to understand how to make the most of it.