OpenEnergyMonitor development plan discussion

Andre_K · 2024-09-21T12:42:08.693Z

OpenEnergyMonitor development plan 2024

Emoncms MyHeatpump app

I’d love to get DHW tank temperature as input to the heatpump app, if only for display purposes.for now. It could down the road be useful to compare DHW performance better as charging offsets etc. could be automatically determined from the data.

grod55 · 2024-09-21T17:44:10.695Z

OpenEnergyMonitor development plan 2024

Implement subscription billing rather than convoluted shop top up credit.

I am supportive of a subscription plan at a reasonable cost.

I will be interested in how you will handle the existing credits (we have a sizable balance and this was one of the appealing features of emonCMS - the more we buy from the shop, we get credits for emonCMS hosting).

Perhaps one way to keep purchases separate from subscription plans is to offer discounts on future purchases of gear from the shop vs subscription top up credits. The current emoncms subscription credit is 20% of the purchase invoice price. How about creating a shop voucher for future purchases?

Alternatively, provide tiered subscription rates based on the number of feeds. If I purchase more gear from the shop, I will create more feeds, so a discount for having more feeds is somewhat like the credits we get today.

Of course, all this depends on the subscription rates you plan to introduce. The current rate of 1GBP per year per feed is reasonable for a small number of feeds, but it gets expensive with larger numbers. With my credits and current number of feeds, I have covered over 5 years of emonCMS use. Changes to the current model will impact my budget going forward.

TrystanLea · 2024-09-21T22:53:54.058Z

Thanks for your thoughts on this @grod55 the primary goal of subscription or scheduled payment, is to make it administratively easier for users. We don’t envisage any significant movement in overall account costs at this point, perhaps a slight change in distribution of cost if higher resolution feeds are more expensive than lower resolution feeds, but nothing finalised yet. Interestingly the £1/year per feed is now 20% cheaper than the £1/year per feed when billing started in 2018 due to inflation according to Inflation calculator | Bank of England.

grod55 · 2024-09-22T00:16:42.187Z

Thanks. I appreciate the insight and glad you have been able to maintain the 1GBP price. Also understand that some feeds are more expensive.

TrystanLea · 2024-09-22T08:55:00.065Z

@djh interesting point about half hourly alignment, all the work I have done on half hourly has been aligned with the clock, I thought that would be a requirement to make half hourly settlement possible?

@borpin yes down sampling would be an emoncms core feature. Will consider min/max/mean when I look at this.

@grod55 I would like to do more work on the multi account management module but Im afraid per node user permissions is not a level were going to get into at least for the foreseeable future. Im aware this side of things can get complicated fast from previous attempts.

Alerts are a much needed feature!

@Andre_K +1 for tank temperature, though it needs sensor distance from top of the tank and distance from top of coil really to make comparisons between systems easier.

Andre_K · 2024-09-22T08:59:54.889Z

TrystanLea:

it needs sensor distance from top of the tank and distance from top of coil really to make comparisons between systems easier.

Yes, definitely. I have a sensor at the top and in the middle and look at both. Are those distance measurements in datasheets of the cylinders?

TrystanLea · 2024-09-22T10:08:40.971Z

September 22nd amendments to development plan:

Heatpump app:

~~Add button to recalculate daily stats~~
~~Add immersion heater feed option~~ - complete.

HeatpumpMonitor.org

~~Expand account authentication to make write apikey available for backend processes such as rebuilding daily data stats~~ - different mechanism implemented for now a master key specifically for the route cleardaily, as many systems were not associated with an emoncms.org user login specifically.
~~Implement mechanism for rebuilding daily stats for all accounts from HeatpumpMonitor.org~~ -complete.
~~Forum post about mirroring self hosted systems on emoncms.org~~ - HeatpumpMonitor.org self hosted systems

ajdunlop · 2024-09-27T05:46:08.055Z

Something else I’ve seen mentioned in the past is to add the ability to add notes.
This would be useful to show when something about the system, its settings or the building it’s heating happen. This would help explain changes in the performance of a system and help with those trying to keep track of tweaks they are making.

Andre_K · 2024-09-30T15:41:27.913Z

I’d like to see one additional COP button/grouping that is Full window - DHW. My rationale is that the “Space heating” looks only at times where the compressor is on and neglects periods where just the pumps are on when the heat pump is cycling. Taking this idea a bit further, maybe we could have an advanced view with check boxes on what to include in the shown stats. Something like

DHW CH Pump only Standby (pumps off)

Would then only include periods where the compressor is on for space heating and also the periods when the pumps are circulating the hot water between active cycles.

The existing buttons could just map to the appropriate selections of those check boxes, which would hence not impact usability for anyone that’s used to the way it currently works

meatballs · 2024-10-03T14:35:22.775Z

Edit: ignore was thinking this was hpm dev post

mortstar · 2024-10-04T10:52:39.083Z

Idea for heatpumpmonitor.org

Would it be possible to add an “average” for each column (where applicable)?

My usecase: SPF/SCOP is only part of the story, I often add other data such as electricity consumption, room temperature, etc. to get a fuller picture when comparing systems. It would be really useful to add a mean average row for those columns where it is applicable.

Alternatively adding additional detail to the “Totals” section for the added columns which would support average data.

Lakee · 2024-10-08T05:52:29.660Z

For heatpumpmonitor.org

On each system’s dashboard view buy default it displays MY HEATPUMP at the top, this title can be edited by the user when configuring the app in Emoncms. However, would it be useful if this title by default displayed the heat pump make/model and location, like it dose on the system summary page. May be a useful identifier when comparing two or more systems side by side.

TrystanLea · 2024-10-08T08:44:38.974Z

@Lakee yes agreed! I was thinking about just this the other day, Im thinking of introducing a way to link a emoncms.org dashboard to a heatpumpmonitor system, this could allow the dashboard to load this information from HeatpumpMonitor.org.

This would be part of a ‘Share to HeatpumpMonitor.org’ button that would be available from the emoncms.org MyHeatpump app.

Lakee · 2024-10-08T17:35:14.989Z

Also, how about being able to filter by country/region/county etc - nice to be able to compare local systems in similar climates, as this can have an impact on ASHP performance - I think that’s only possible at the moment if it’s part of the system’s location?

Robert.Wall · 2024-10-08T18:50:06.113Z

What about a ‘subjective’ evaluation of the location - exposed, sheltered, suburban, etc? This could have a significant effect, especially if the building’s insulation is not up to modern standards.

Lakee · 2024-10-23T06:11:44.176Z

Indeed, this will have an impact on the overall property heat loss and system design, but along with internal system flow temperature etc, the main external influence on the actual ASHP performance is outside temperature - and humidity especially around defrost cycles.

We can add an additional field to see the mean outside temperatures, but was wondering if that, and maybe Carnot % would be useful as part of the default view?…but I guess there is a limit to practical number of columns on the landing page!

TrystanLea · 2024-10-28T11:31:47.637Z

I’ve summarised the feature requests ideas so far in the introduction post to make it easier to keep track of this. I’ve also updated the change log OpenEnergyMonitor development (updated Oct 28th) - #19 by TrystanLea. Cheers!

borpin · 2024-10-29T07:12:20.764Z

Possibly add moving the Python environment to a venv - I doubt that will be a quick task!

Perhaps automating some of the GitHub stuff and improving/automating the release builds.

Final one update scripts and a new SD Card build (most recent PHP etc).

Andre_K · 2025-01-02T20:54:21.007Z

Some people have monitoring where they can see the actual evaporation/condensation temperatures (e.g. Vaillant ebus, unsure about other manufacturers) - I think it would be great to allow using those measurements for the Carnot efficiency calculation instead of the fixed offsets. This could be simply two feeds that if specified are used for the Carnot efficiency calculation, if they are left blank, the default offsets are used. For example, I’m getting this:

image2814×1397 441 KB

With the usual Vaillant sensor shenanigans, I shifted evaporation/condensation temperatures by -0.5K and +1K so they collapse to the same temperature (=outside temperature) between cycles. As can be seen there’s quite some transient behaviour in the beginning. Condensation goes toward +2K of flow temperature as the cycle stabilizes, the evaporation temperature is around 3.7K lower than ambient.

dmajwool · 2025-01-09T11:06:13.017Z

Agreed @TrystanLea There is already a link from each system on heatpumpmonitor.org to emonCMS.org.
But I think it would be useful to display a link back from a system on emonCMS.org to its entry on heatpumpmonitor.org