Monitoring individual appliances
For some time I’ve been monitoring my home’s aggregate power consumption using a CurrentCost EnviR. I’m now planning to upgrade my monitoring hardware. Firstly, I want to install CurrentCost Individual Appliance Monitor plugs on my appliances (£13.33 each). Secondly, I want to measure aggregate real, reactive power and voltage using an Open Energy Montitor.
List of appliances to monitor
(each Current Cost ENVI display can only cope with 9 IAMs)
- TV
- Amp
- Subwoofer
- HTPC
- Washing machine
- ADSL modem
- Livingroom lamp1
- Livingroom lamp2
- Livingroom lamp3
- Bedroom1 lamp1
- Bedroom1 lamp2
- Bedroom2 lamp
- Bedroom DAB radio etc
- Hair dryer
- Hair straighteners
- Iron
- Hoover
- Toaster
- Kettle
- Coffee Maker / Bread Maker
- Microwave
- Fridge
- Kitchen Radio
- Dish washer
- Kitchen lamp
- Laptop
- Desktop
- 24” LCD
- Office HiFi
- Study lamp1 & lamp2 (sharing a plug)
- Printer
- GigE switch
- Fan
- Battery charger
Cost
- 33 CurrentCost individual appliance monitors = 11 packs of 3 each = 11 × £39.95 = £439.45
- 3 more Current Cost EnviR base stations (each can only handle 10 sensors) =3 × £27.99 = £83.97
- 3 more Current Cost USB cables = 2 × £8.50 = £25.50
- OpenEnergyMonitor (to measure aggregate real, reactive and voltage) = £27 for emonTx kit + £10 for CT + £13 for AC-AC voltage sensor + £30 for BaseStation (I need to check if my existing Nanode will work with the addition of an RFM12b module available from RS for £6.17)= £80
- TOTAL = £628.92
Update 21/6/2012
I bought 3 CurrentCost Individual Appliance Monitors to test. They seeem to work well. My main concern was that the wireless range would be too short to allow me to monitor every appliance in my house but the wireless range seems fine. Sure, the system drops a few more samples from the wireless monitor that’s furthest from the CurrentCost EnviR but the data is entirely usable. I’ve modified my Python logging script to handle multiple sensors.