Wireless Energy Meters for Distributed Energy Efficiency Applications

摘要

European and national statistics on energy consumptions show that buildings have a significant energy impact. Their consumptions approximately amounts 40% of the total energy and, according to forecasts, they trend up during next years. It is known that the application of energy smart metering tools can boost energy savings in buildings, leveraging on enhanced awareness. This work presents a pervasive power usage monitoring system based on a wireless energy meter network which can be easily deployed to monitor energy consumptions of appliances in households or computing hardware and related infrastructures in data centers. Two wireless energy meters, as base units of a sensor network, has been designed and developed: a power adapter energy meter and a clamp based energy meter. The adapter is to be employed for monitoring devices that can be plugged to a power outlet while the clamp for heavy loads and devices that cannot be safely or easily unplugged. A base station receives data gathered through all sensors of the network, acting as a gateway to the internet. Ad-hoc web based GUIs provide users with relevant information about real time and aggregated energy consumptions in the selected application.