A low-power wireless system for energy consumption analysis at mains sockets

Abstract

Introduction: Improving energy efficiency and reducing energy wastage is an important topic of our time. But it is quite difficult to figure out how much of our total electricity bill can be mapped to which device or at what time the device used it. We believe energy efficiency of normal households can be improved, if this kind of transparency would be available. In this article, we present a system for energy measurement at mains sockets to gain a transparent view of energy consumption for each device in a household. It consists of several smart energy measuring devices (SEMDs) that use a low-power radio protocol to dynamically build and connect to a radio network to transfer power usage date to a server. At the server, the data is stored and can be accessed via web interface. Results: Our primary goal was to build a back-end system for an energy metering platform with very low energy consumption. This platform can provide data for a variety of services that enables users (the consumers) to understand and improve their energy consumption behavior and increase overall energy efficiency of their households.