Zigbee interface with BGE smart meter and thermostat

[shifmeister]

Hello, I don’t have an ISY yet. I am in the planning stages of my home automation project. I am leaning towards the Elk/ISY combo and have a question regarding Zigbee compatibility with my home’s smart meter and thermostat.

 

I have service through BGE (Baltimore Gas & Electric) in Maryland which has installed smart meters and thermostats to those most houses. This gives them hourly energy usage data and allows them to remotely control my thermostat. Through their website, I can view hourly usage details and remotely set my thermostat settings. They have “Energy Savings Days†where they will cycle my AC off 50% of the time. They also give me a $1.25 discount for each kWh I use less than average during the hours of 1-7PM. All in all, it’s a nice deal.

 

Anywho, I am wondering if anyone has had luck interfacing through the ISY-994iZS to the BGE smart meter and thermostat. I know it operates over the Zigbee Smart Energy Protocol, but there isn’t a ton of information on BGE’s site. I emailed them if they allow people to interface with it like all the guys at SCE I see around here. Their response was this:

 

“Smart meters will bring enhanced online features with the Smart Energy Manager tool. Some customers already have access to their usage through this feature, which allows you to track your usage yearly, monthly, daily and even hourly, compare it with similar homes, and track fluctuations in the weather as well. BGE does not evaluate customer-owned equipment; unfortunately, we are not able to advise whether or not the device you mentioned is compatible with our smart meters. We apologize for any inconvenience. However, as more smart meters are installed throughout our service territory, additional features will be made available to our customers.â€

 

That doesn't explain too much, so I am wondering if there is anyone that has tried with their equipment and had luck. I have done some searching, but found nothing regarding BGE.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello shifmeister,

 

Welcome to the forum and apologies for tardy reply.

 

There are two questions here:

1. Can ISY communicate with BGE, well, I do not think so if they do NOT have a process to pair the meter to another device (basically the meter needs to know the EUID and Install Code for ISY). So, unless you can figure out a process by which they linked the thermostats to the meter, I pretty much doubt you can do anything

2. Can ISY communicate with the provided meter? Unfortunately not since, SEP 1.1, does not allow an end node to control another end node. Only the coordinator/ESI (in this case the meter) has that authority

 

So, if you wish, you can find their technical contact on the HAN side and we would be delighted to talk to them. We did the same with Oncor and they have been more than helpful.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[shifmeister]

Thanks for the info, Michel. I will see if I can find someone at BGE who knows what they are talking about.

 

But, it sounds like thermostat control is very unlikely and meter pairing is also unlikely at this point.

 

That almost simplifies my decision process a bit. The ISY is my pick for controller, but it wouldn't be able to communicate with Zigbee, Z-wave and Insteon with a single box. (I have two z-wave locks and plan on doing Insteon lighting.) Eliminating the need for Zigbee solves that issue.

 

I may be able to work out how to control the thermostat through the web page controls. And I can replace direct meter monitoring with something else like the Brultech GEM or something similar.

[adorsett]

Google let me to this person. Perhaps she can point you to someone who can work to enable the HAN portion of the meter. I have the Zigbee ISY and I'd love to pull the data from my BGE meter.

 

Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE)

State of Deployment

Presenter:

Jessica Baker, Smart Grid Business Architect and Senior Project Manager Jessica.baker@constellation.com

[Jason Miller]

Did you ever figure this out? 

[EvaUnit02]

I'd like to know as well.