Ting monitors and power quality

[Rumpole]

I've posted in other threads my weekly Ting summary of power quality. Ting is a monitor that my insurance company provides to monitor fire risk in my home electrical wiring. I'm exploring if it is useful for monitoring power quality for my stereo system. In addition to the weekly summary of daily plots, the app has a real time display that shows voltage and high frequency (Hi-Fi) noise for the previous 30 seconds. Images below show one 30 second plot and a text box explaining Hi-Fi noise.

I can use this to see changes in voltage and noise in real time as I turn on and off different appliances. If I power down all the appliances in my house, I assume this gives me an estimate of how much voltage variability and noise there is in the power supply from my utility company. I didn't see any change in variability in the 30 second real time plot when my solar panels started generating power this morning (this is a cloud free day, so I need to check again when the solar output is more variable because of clouds). In the daily plots there is a diurnal cycle in the voltage peaking in the daytime when the panels are generating power.

Ting also measures total harmonic distortion and their website rates different utility companies for THD. They don't explain how they calculate THD and I don't have access to a THD estimate for my home. They say I will be notified if my home THD increases "beyond the industry standard for acceptable limits". Ting also reports alerts for brownouts, community power outages and can detect lightning activity and has been used to estimate area where power lines might have caused fires.

Is anyone else using a Ting monitor? It might be more helpful if I could get the real time estimates of THD in my home.

 

[Bruce B]

Yeah, we've got one as well and didn't think about it monitoring electricity for the audio system. I just thought of it as a PITA for push notices about outages/drops. I need to rethink this.... Thanks!

 

[Rumpole]

I have variable clouds today and I'm tracking my solar panel power generation and my Ting monitor for voltage and high frequency noise. There is a strong relationship between the variability in solar panel generation and Ting measured voltage. The voltage increase from 124 V to 125.5 V as the panel generation increases from 2 kW to 9 kW. When the solar panel output is stable the Ting voltage is stable, around +/- 0.1 V variability. There is no change in high frequency noise as the solar panel generation varies. The solar panels are located on a detached garage and connected to a subpanel in the garage, so perhaps this minimizes any impact on my main panel.

One other weird thing - with most appliances in the house, I see a voltage decrease when I turn on the appliance. But I have an Alessi induction water kettle, and the voltage increases and remains elevated when I turn it on, then decreases again when I turn it off. I have an induction range, but it does not increase my voltage. Only the Alessi water kettle does this. Weird.