Non-intrusive Zigbee power meter for load monitoring in smart buildings

Energy efficiency in smart buildings requires distributed sensing infrastructure to monitor the power consumption of appliances, machines and lighting sources. The analysis of current and voltage waveforms is fundamental for gathering diagnostic information about the power quality and for reducing power wastage. Moreover, it enables Non-intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM), which is the process of disaggregating a household's total electricity consumption into its contributing appliances, by analysing the voltage and current changes. In this paper, an innovative full Energy-neutral (i.e. battery free) and Non-intrusive Wireless Energy Meter (NIWEM) is presented to measure current, voltage and power factor. As key features, the NIWEM is completely non-invasive and it can self-sustain its operations by harvesting energy from the monitored load. It also features a standard (Zigbee) wireless interface for communication with the smart-building system. Experimental results have confirmed that complete energy sustainability can be achieved also with very low-power loads

Experimental Performance Assessment of a low-cost single-phase Arduino-based Power Meter

A single-phase, low-cost, plug and play, portable and wireless meter has been implemented to measure the electrical parameters of typical household electrical loads ranging from a few watts to a few kilowatts. ADE7753 smart measuring IC was employed to acquire load current and voltage information through sensors. The Arduino Mega 2560 board, alongside the Arduino Wi-Fi shield were used for wireless communication and for logging of information on an external memory card. Measurements performed on eight typical office loads using the proposed meter and a calibrated Fluke 345 power quality clamp meter revealed an acceptable performance for most of the considered electrical appliances. The absolute percentage error in measured active power and cumulative energy consumption were less than 5 % for most of the considered appliances. The total cost of the system was 139 USD, which makes it affordable to measure the power consumption of different typical domestic loads

FSEA 2014 – Proceedings of the AVI 2014 Workshop on Fostering Smart Energy Applications through Advanced Visual Interfaces

It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to FSEA 2014, the AVI 2014 workshop on Fostering Smart Energy Applications through Advanced Visual Interfaces. This workshop focuses on advanced interaction, interface, and visualization techniques for energy-related applications, tools, and services. It brings together researchers and practitioners from a diverse range of background, including interaction design, human-computer interaction, visualization, computer games, and other fields concerned with the development of advanced visual interfaces for smart energy applications. FSEA 2014 is the result of the efforts of many people involved in its organization, including our programme committee, and others who have assisted us in putting this workshop together

Retrospective Examination of Demand-side Energy-efficiency Policies

Energy efficiency policies are a primary avenue for reducing carbon emissions, with potential additional benefits from improved air quality and energy security. We review literature on a broad range of existing non-transportation energy efficiency policies covering appliance standards, financial incentives, information and voluntary programs, and government energy use (building and professional codes are not included). Estimates indicate these programs are likely to have collectively saved up to 4 quads of energy annually, with appliance standards and utility demand-side management likely making up at least half these savings. Energy Star, Climate Challenge, and 1605b voluntary emissions reductions may also contribute significantly to aggregate energy savings, but how much of these savings would have occurred absent these programs is less clear. Although even more uncertain, reductions in CO2, NOX, SO2, and PM-10 associated with energy savings may contribute about 10% more to the value of energy savings.energy efficiency policy, appliance standards, information, incentives, voluntary programs

Ultra-Low Power and Non-intrusive Wireless Monitoring for Smart Buildings

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) offer a new solution for distributed monitoring, processing and communication. First of all, the stringent energy constraints to which sensing nodes are typically subjected. WSNs are often battery powered and placed where it is not possible to recharge or replace batteries. Energy can be harvested from the external environment but it is a limited resource that must be used efficiently. Energy efficiency is a key requirement for a credible WSNs design. From the power source's perspective, aggressive energy management techniques remain the most effective way to prolong the lifetime of a WSN. A new adaptive algorithm will be presented, which minimizes the consumption of wireless sensor nodes in sleep mode, when the power source has to be regulated using DC-DC converters. Another important aspect addressed is the time synchronisation in WSNs. WSNs are used for real-world applications where physical time plays an important role. An innovative low-overhead synchronisation approach will be presented, based on a Temperature Compensation Algorithm (TCA). The last aspect addressed is related to self-powered WSNs with Energy Harvesting (EH) solutions. Wireless sensor nodes with EH require some form of energy storage, which enables systems to continue operating during periods of insufficient environmental energy. However, the size of the energy storage strongly restricts the use of WSNs with EH in real-world applications. A new approach will be presented, which enables computation to be sustained during intermittent power supply. The discussed approaches will be used for real-world WSN applications. The first presented scenario is related to the experience gathered during an European Project (3ENCULT Project), regarding the design and implementation of an innovative network for monitoring heritage buildings. The second scenario is related to the experience with Telecom Italia, regarding the design of smart energy meters for monitoring the usage of household's appliances

Deep Learning Applications in non-intrusive load monitoring

Within the frame of the project Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring for Intelligent Home Energy Management Systems, this work will present a deep learning application in non-intrusive load monitoring on a case study in a residential home in in Gambelas, Faro in the Algarve region south of Portugal. This work has for a goal to detect type 2 appliances in different houses. For the sake of this study, two models will be trained: - Convolutional Neural Network - Long Short-term Memory Recurrent Neural Network on three datasets: - UKDale - REDD - Data from the Portuguese private residential house from the project NILM for IHEMS.No âmbito do projeto Monitorização de Carga Não Intrusiva para Sistemas Inteligentes de Gestão de Energia Doméstica, este trabalho apresentará uma aplicação de aprendizagem profunda na monitorização de carga não intrusiva num estudo de caso numa casa residencial em Gambelas, Faro na região sul do Algarve de Portugal. Este trabalho tem por objetivo detectar eletrodomésticos tipo 2 em diferentes residências. Para fins deste estudo, dois modelos serão treinados: - Rede Neural Convolucional - Rede Neural Recorrente de Memória Longa de Curto Prazo em três conjuntos de dados: - UKDale - REDD - Dados da habitação privada portuguesa do projecto NILM para IHEMS

Energy-Use Feedback Engineering - Technology and Information Design for Residential Users

The research presented in this study covers a first design iteration of energy feedback for residential users. This research contributes with a framework and new insights into the study of energy-use information for residential users, which exemplifies the challenges and potential of integrating information technology in this part of the energy system

Carbon Emission Policies in Key Economies

The Australian Government asked the Productivity Commission to undertake a study on the ‘effective’ carbon prices that result from emissions and energy reduction policies in Australia and other key economies (the UK, USA, Germany, New Zealand, China, India, Japan and South Korea). The Commissions research report, released 9 June 2011, provides a stocktake of the large number of policy measures in the electricity generation and road transport sectors of the countries studied. And it provides estimates of the burdens associated with these policies in each country and the abatement achieved. While the results are based on a robust methodology, data limitations have meant that some estimates could only be indicative. More than 1000 carbon policy measures were identified in the nine countries studied, ranging from (limited) emissions trading schemes to policies that support particular types of abatement technology. While these disparate measures cannot be expressed as an equivalent single price on greenhouse gas emissions, all policies impose costs that someone must pay. The Commission has interpreted ‘effective’ carbon prices broadly to mean the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions — the ‘price’ of abatement achieved by particular policies. The estimated cost per unit of abatement achieved varied widely, both across programs within each country and in aggregate across countries. The relative cost effectiveness of price-based approaches is illustrated for Australia by stylised modelling that suggests that the abatement from existing policies for electricity could have been achieved at a fraction of the cost. The estimated price effects of supply-side policies have generally been modest, other than for electricity in Germany and the UK. Such price uplifts are of some relevance to assessing carbon leakage and competitiveness impacts, but are very preliminary and substantially more information would be required.carbon pricing; cost abatement; greenhouse gas emissions; abatement technology; carbon policy; energy reduction policy; emissions trading scheme; carbon leakage

Design and Implementation of Low‑Cost Real‑Time Energy Logger for Industrial and Home Applications

With the significant increase in energy demands in the last decade, the issues of unnecessaryenergy usage have increased rapidly. Therefore, there is an immediate need to providea cheap and easily accessible monitoring tool for the energy consumed by an applianceused in homes and industries. Instead of monitoring the total power consumption of thehouses and/or industries, it is useful to monitor the power consumption of the individualappliance, which in turn, helps in saving the overall energy usage and thereby makes itcost-effective. This paper presents a cost-efficient design and implementation of a monitoringsystem that can precisely measure the current and voltage of each appliance. Thedesign provides tracking of device activity in a real-time environment for the industries andhelps in adopting to the green initiative. The design comprises of Arduino based microcontrollerand Raspberry Pi, that performs precise measurements of current and voltageof the device, followed by measuring the power consumed by the device. This paper presentstwo different system designs, one for the single-phase measurements and the otherfor the DC measurements. The single-phase measurement device comprises of 10-bit ADCwhereas, the 24 V DC measurement device comprises of a 12-bit ADC, which provideshigher measurement accuracy compared to other systems available in the market. Theimplemented design uses the EmonCMS web application to accumulate and envision themonitored data. It provides a flexible and user-friendly solution to monitor the measureddata easily on any android or iOS devices