Development of a user-friendly, low-cost home energy monitoring and recording system

Abstract

This paper reports research undertaken to develop a user-friendly home energy monitoring system which is capable of collecting, processing and displaying detailed usage data. The system allows users to monitor power usage and switch their electronic appliances remotely, using any web enabled device, including computers, phones and tablets. The system aims to raise awareness of consumer energy use by gathering data about usage habits, and displaying this information to support consumers when selecting energy tariffs or new appliances.To achieve these aims, bespoke electrical hardware, or 'nodes', have been designed and built to monitor power usage, switch devices on and off, and communicate via a Wi-Fi connection, with bespoke software, the 'server'. The server hosts a webpage which allows users to see a real-time overview of how power is being used in the home as well as allowing scheduled tasks and triggered tasks (which respond to events) to be programmed. The system takes advantage of well standardised networking specifications, such as Wi-Fi and TCP, allowing access from within the home, or remotely through the internet. The server runs under Debian Linux on a Raspberry Pi computer and is written in Python, HTML and JavaScript. The server includes advanced functionality, such as device recognition which allows users to individually monitor several devices that share a single node. The openPicus Flyport is used to provide Wi-Fi connectivity and programmable logic control to nodes. The Flyport is programmed with code compiled from C. 1 IntroductionThe management of electrical energy supply to meet the growing demand without contributing more to the green-house gas problem is a major task. At consumer level various forms of smart meters have been introduced by electricity suppliers to inform customers of their energy usage profiles and these have enabled the suppliers to obtain useful demand profiles. However some smart meters do not provide a breakdown of which appliances contribute to the overall demand profile. This has been a problem and smart meters are already termed to be 'not so smart meters ' [24]. There is great interest in developing useful, secure, low-cost technologies to monitor and record domestic energy usage and allow users to have more control over their energy usage.Perhaps in the future such systems may even be able to automatically switch energy provider on their owners behalf, depending on which companies offer the cheapest, greenest energy. The technology could also be used to deliver targeted advertising to users supported by savings estimates based on the real usage data that the system collects.None of the existing 'smart meter' solutions offered by energy suppliers to private homes in the UK are able to control devices around the home. Input into the National Grid in the UK is almost entirely comprised of plants which are unable to quickly change their rate of supply, (for example, gas, coal, nuclear) or worse, have an unreliable rate of supply e.g.wind. Since mass produced el...

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