1. Install the Blockly app and create automation.

Blockly app consists of simple programming blocks that allow you to program hardware devices and create simple rules and automations.

• Log in to your wappsto account and install the Blockly app.
• Open the app and click “Add new” to create your first Blockly program (application).
• Give it a name. Eg: “Battery charging automation” and click “Create”.

Once your application is created you will see your workspace with a few initial blocks.

2. Create a Power-moving block. 

First of all, we will clear up space and remove the initial blocks. Click on the block to select it and then press the “Delete” key to delete it.

• Find the “Power” section in the left-side menu (yellowish colour) and click to open it.
• Drag the “Use power between” block into your workspace as shown in the image.
• Change the time period and duration.

For this task, we want to charge the battery before the working day starts, so we use power between 22:00 and 08:00. Our battery takes 2h to charge.

3. Set the commands.

Since we are going to charge our battery, we need to switch the power on and off. For that, we need a “Set value” block.

• Find the “Wappsto” section in the left-side menu (dark blue colour).
• Drag the “Set value” block into the “Switch on command”, as shown in the image.
• Repeat the last action for the “Switch off command”.

4. Select values.

Now we need to add the correct values to the block.

• Find the “Devices” section in the left-side menu (dark blue colour).
• Click on the “Select devices” button to open a list of the devices present in your Wappsto account. Check the devices that you want to add to your workspace. Then click the “Save” button to confirm the selection.

We have selected “Power plug” from Shelly. 

Selected devices will now appear in the left-side menu and you can click on them to see the list of values they are available.

• Drag to your workspace the necessary control values. In our case, they are called “On/Off”.

5. Configure values.

• For ON commands, we set the value “Relay” to “on“.
• For OFF commands, we set the value “Relay” to “off“.

6. Repeat the task every day

To schedule this task to repeat every day:

• Find the “Scheduling” section in the left-side menu (orange colour).
• Drag the “Every day…” block into your workspace, and move the “Use power” block inside the “Every day…” block, as shown in the image.
• Change frequency and time.

Automation needs to start just before the power-moving tasks.

We select a “weekday“, and the time “21:30“.

7. Select region to ensure correct prices

In Denmark, electricity prices in the West region differ from the East.

1. Add the “On initialization” block from the “Wappsto” section.
2. Add the “Set energy prices region…” block from the “Power” section and set the region you want to use (east or west from the Great belt Bridge).
3. Arrange the two new blocks as shown in the image.

8. Save your program

For this program to run, remember to press “Save files”.

If you want to STOP the automation, go to the Blockly app main page, where you see all your created programs. Click on the programs menu button to view its settings. Click the “Stop app” button.

Conclusion

From now on the power plug will switch on for 2 hours throughout the night, when the electricity price is the lowest.

As the next step, you can add more functionality to this automation or create a new one.

Before you start, make sure you have:

• Wappsto account. If you don’t have it, click here to create one.
• On/off relays or smart plugs hooked up to the light switches and electronic devices. If you don’t have any, you can start with an affordable option – Shelly plugs which also come with energy measuring and can give you additional insights into your consumption.
• On/off relays or smart plugs connected to your Wappsto account

1. Install the Blockly app

Blockly app consists of simple programming blocks that allow you to program hardware devices and create simple rules and automations.

• Log in to your wappsto account and install the Blockly app.
• Open the app and click “Add new” to create your first Blockly program (application).
• Give it a name. Eg: “Outside office hours automation” and click “Create”.

Once your application is created you will see your workspace with a few initial blocks.

2. Create your first schedule

First of all, we will clear up space and remove the initial blocks. Click on the block to select it and then press the “Delete” key to delete it.

• Find the “Scheduling” section in the left-side menu (orange colour) and click to open it.
• Drag the “Every day…” block into your workspace as shown in the image.
• Change frequency and time to your desired needs.

For this task, we want something to happen on weekdays at 16:30 when everyone has left the office.

3. Define an action

In this step, we need to decide what should happen every day at a certain time. We want our smart plugs and/or switches to turn off the lights and electronic devices.

• Find the “Wappsto” section in the left-side menu (dark blue colour) and click to open it.
• Drag the “Set value…” block into your workspace as shown in the image.

Now we need to add the correct values to the block.

• Find the “Devices” section in the left-side menu (dark blue colour).
• Click on the “Select devices” button to open a list of the devices present in your Wappsto account. Check the devices that you want to add to your workspace. We have selected “Printer room lights”, “Corridor lights” and “Desk Monitor” from Shelly. Then click the “Save” button to confirm the selection.
• Selected devices will now appear in the left-side menu and you can click on them to see the list of values present under each of them.
• Drag to your workspace the necessary control value. In our case, it is called “On/Off”.
• Set the value to “off”.

4. Repeat the action

In the previous step, we created an action for the “Printer room lights” (marked as nr. 1 in the image). Now do the same for “Corridor lights” (marked as nr. 2) and “Relay” (marked as nr. 3).

To speed up the process of block creation, you can duplicate blocks. Select a block, right-click and select the “duplicate” option.

Remember to change values in the new blocks!

5. Save your program

For this program to run, remember to press “Save files”.

If you want to STOP the automation, go to the Blockly app main page, where you see all your created programs. Click on the programs menu button to view its settings. Click the “Stop app” button.

Conclusion

From now on your lights and devices will switch off at a certain time on weekdays.

Similarly, you can program devices to switch on. Duplicate the whole schedule block and change the time, and values from “off” to “on”.

In ShowMe app Dashboard, the first thing you will see is the ‘Explore your data‘ widget.

To simplify our data exploration,

1. select 1-month data (“1m” button left, top of the chart),
2. and deselect all the meters from the legend (clicking on the name of the meter you want to deselect, the legend is on the right of the chart), as it is shown in the image.

Most energy consumers have a typical weekly consumption pattern. During working hours, the consumption is high, and it should be lower during closing hours.

The energy consumption at times when a building is empty is also called idle power consumption. For clarity, we have marked it in blue.

2. Find Baseline Irregularity

Even though we have procedures to minimize energy waste, sometimes things go wrong. Such events can be seen as a disturbance in the otherwise repetitive pattern of the Baseline.

Let’s start by resetting our zoom level. Press the “Autoscale” button or “all” and find the disturbance in the usage pattern.

By zooming into the week from 4th to 11th October, we can clearly see the irregularity.

We have marked the irregularity in red and the regular idle power consumption in green for clarity.

In this example, we will calculate the price ourselves assuming that the price per kWh is 4 DKK.

In the previous section, we had a regular baseline marked in green. By zooming in on that area (~12 hours between the 4th and 5th of October), we get 164.2kWh of total energy usage in the “Energy consumption widget”.

By zooming in on the irregular (red area of ~12 hours between the 6th and 7th of October) we get 371.9kWh of total energy usage in the “Energy consumption widget”.

(371.9 – 164.2) * 4 = 830.8 DKK

Selected period: 4th – 11th October

Conclusion

Now you have the tools and ideas on how to find waste in your energy consumption.

You can import your electricity data into our cloud and using the ShowMe analysis app, find patterns and disturbances in the patterns which can indicate waste.

Use the link to the link below to help you get started with data import. The guide currently supports Denmark’s energy utility data import.