Quick setup: your first week with the 9388A

What the display is showing you

The front panel has a two-digit LED window, a push button to its left, and a rotary knob below. Turn the knob and the display cycles through six readings. That is the whole owner interface.

If DL reads OFF, you are in an off-peak period and nothing is being restricted. Press the button to see the value, and the display returns to OFF on its own.

Setting the demand limit

Think of the Demand Limit as cruise control for your house. Lower means more savings and less headroom. Higher means more headroom and smaller savings. Bill Brayden, who invented the system, describes it as finding the happy medium between savings and comfort. Your installer set a starting value for your home, your loads, and your rate plan. Give it a few weeks before changing it.

To adjust it:

1. Turn the knob until the display reads DL.
2. Press the button once to display the current value.
3. Turn the knob to raise or lower it. Move in 0.5 kW steps.
4. Press the button to confirm.

Wait at least an hour between adjustments. The system needs a full averaging period to show you what the change did. Three changes in twenty minutes tells you nothing.

How load priorities work

You do not program priorities, but it helps to know why your house behaves the way it does.

Every circuit connected to the 9388A has a priority number. Priority 1 is highest: last to be held back, first to be restored. Higher numbers get held back sooner. A special priority holds a load off for the entire on-peak window.

A typical Arizona setup

• Dryer element, highest. You started it, so you expect it to run. It also cycles its element naturally, so its average draw is roughly half its nameplate.
• Air conditioning, high. With two units they usually share a priority so they rotate rather than run together. Compressors have a minimum off-time so they are never short-cycled.
• Water heater, lowest. A tank holds its temperature for hours. Delaying a reheat cycle by twenty minutes is invisible. First held back, and usually held longest.
• Pool pump, spa, EV charger, electric heat. Assigned around those based on what is at your house.

Confirming it is actually working

Check ID. During the day you should see a real number, typically 1 to 5 kW with the big loads idle. If ID reads 0.0 and you do not have solar, call us.

Watch LS during on-peak hours. On a hot afternoon you should see bars change as the system rotates loads. If every bar stays on all afternoon, either demand never got near the limit or nothing is being controlled.

Check PD at the end of the month against the demand figure on your bill. They will not match exactly. The 9388A uses a sliding average and assumes a fixed line voltage, so it typically reads within 1 to 2 percent of the utility's revenue meter, and slightly conservative on purpose. Close is correct.

What to expect in the first 30 days

Week one

Set your thermostat in the 70 to 72 degree range. This is not a typo. The strategy is to pre-cool the house and store that cool in the floors, walls, and furniture, so that when the system holds the compressor back for a few minutes you do not feel it. Holding the house at 78 works against the system.

Weeks one and two

Note anything that annoys you: hot water running short in the evening, a room that warms up at 4 p.m. Those are demand limit conversations, usually solved by raising DL half a kilowatt.

Weeks two through four

The system is learning. When it switches a load on, it watches how much total demand changed and attributes that change to the load. Those estimates keep updating as appliances age, which is why sequencing improves over the first several weeks rather than being at its best on day one.

End of the first billing cycle

Your first real data point, and only if you are on the right rate plan. Find your meter read date on the bill and compare the demand charge line item, not the total, since totals move with weather and usage.

Expect some tuning. Almost nobody lands on the right demand limit the first time.

Important: you have to change your rate plan

The 9388A reduces the peak demand your utility records. That only saves you money if you are billed for demand.

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Questions about your own setup? Call toll free (888) 461-9336, direct (970) 461-9600, or email help@energysentry.com. Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM–5:00 PM Arizona time.