Electricity Smart Meters

elrjc2

In the 2006 budget the government announced £5m for 'smart meters.' These meters would provide instant updates on energy usage and can be read remotely. These meters do not, however, give the user an itemised breakdown of how much electricity each appliance is using in the household.

For my final year project at university, I want to build such a meter. As such, I want to know what people would want to be displayed and captured by this system.

I've put together a questionnaire to help and would be grateful if you could fill it out. There are only 22 questions (3 pages) and it should take no longer than 5-10 mins.

http://SmartMeter.speedsurvey.com

Thanks in advance,

Richard

pknottm

Hi Richard...

I tried the link but it came back "page not found"
Is this the correct link?

espresso

pknottm wrote:

Hi Richard...

I tried the link but it came back "page not found"
Is this the correct link?

If at first you don't suceed.........

Cardew

Welcome to the Forum.

How does your proposed device differ from this which is already available at a stupidly expensive price?

http://www.electrisave.co.uk/

Ghastly advertising drivel, cashing in on the Green Bandwaggon,

If Lidl can sell power monitoring meters for £6 of so, why not have a batch of those around a house?

Not trying to pour cold water on a University project by the way.

elrjc2

Thanks for the replies. There were some interesting comments, particularly with regard to electrisave - I've not heard of that before.

From what I've now read about electrisave it clips to your live box and will show you how much energy you are using (and cost) in total.

The aim of my project is to take commercial of the shelf kits like the lidl gear and dot them around the house on appliances. From my initial research people would prefer to have a central place to view the consumption information. Hence the electricity consumption data from each appliance being monitored would be networked to either a computer or a dedicated meter which would be displayed prominently in the home.

From here the user could view the consumption information for individual appliances and as a whole in terms of cost, kwh...etc. The user would also be able to view current consumption levels against historical/average trends. Indicators would also be used to display high/med/low consumption. The system could also make recommendations. For example, how many people understand that if you ran your dishwasher over night it is cheaper than running it after dinner?

Another benefit of centralising the information would be that the system would be able to recognise the change in electricity prices throughout a day and hence make the data being returned more accuarte. Data could be read remotely by the electricity companies.

Because of the historical tracking I mentioned, it would be possible to monitor the degredation of appliances over time. So for example, a brand new kettle is more efficient than an older kettle. If you knew that the price of boiling the kettle had significantly increased over time then you would buy a new one. So the system would be helpful for identifying (from an efficiency point of view) when to upgrade your appliances.

The system could also be used to monitor the safety aspects of your appliances. For example, is earth bonding intact? is the appliance drawing an uncomfortably high current?

These were just some of my initial ideas. Current systems on the market can to some of these, but there is no integrated package which could enable it all to be done from one place.

Richard

Cardew

elrjc2 wrote:

Thanks for the replies. There were some interesting comments, particularly with regard to electrisave - I've not heard of that before.

From what I've now read about electrisave it clips to your live box and will show you how much energy you are using (and cost) in total.

The aim of my project is to take commercial of the shelf kits like the lidl gear and dot them around the house on appliances. From my initial research people would prefer to have a central place to view the consumption information. Hence the electricity consumption data from each appliance being monitored would be networked to either a computer or a dedicated meter which would be displayed prominently in the home.

From here the user could view the consumption information for individual appliances and as a whole in terms of cost, kwh...etc. The user would also be able to view current consumption levels against historical/average trends. Indicators would also be used to display high/med/low consumption. The system could also make recommendations. For example, how many people understand that if you ran your dishwasher over night it is cheaper than running it after dinner?

Another benefit of centralising the information would be that the system would be able to recognise the change in electricity prices throughout a day and hence make the data being returned more accuarte. Data could be read remotely by the electricity companies.

Because of the historical tracking I mentioned, it would be possible to monitor the degredation of appliances over time. So for example, a brand new kettle is more efficient than an older kettle. If you knew that the price of boiling the kettle had significantly increased over time then you would buy a new one. So the system would be helpful for identifying (from an efficiency point of view) when to upgrade your appliances.

The system could also be used to monitor the safety aspects of your appliances. For example, is earth bonding intact? is the appliance drawing an uncomfortably high current?

These were just some of my initial ideas. Current systems on the market can to some of these, but there is no integrated package which could enable it all to be done from one place.

Richard

Richard,

For example, how many people understand that if you ran your dishwasher over night it is cheaper than running it after dinner?

the system would be able to recognise the change in electricity prices throughout a day

That only applies to those on Economy 7 tariffs(or Economy 10) and only a small percentage of UK consumers have E7. Unless you have storage heating the higher daytime charges(over 'standard' charges) make it difficult to make E7 a viable proposition.

Why does an old kettle use more electricity("significant increase") than an new kettle?(you can descale it) Ohm's law still applies! how is the excess wattage dissipated?

I have a 'master' weather station that monitors remote sensors in, say, bedroom, garden and lounge. They are available pretty cheaply now so perhaps you could adapt that technology.

Ken68

Hi Richard,
Useful stuff here, http://www.energywatch.org.uk/uploads/Smart_meters.pdf
....talk of need to change the ownership of meters , consumer churn and stranded assets.
Could explain why our energy providers are unwilling to invest in smart metering.