Stamp-Sized Sensor Can Accurately Identify Electric Consumption Of Every Device In Your Home
Reducing or eliminating unnecessary electricity consumption is an effective method of not only decreasing home energy costs, but also decreasing energy waste in the electricity sector, and the rising consumer interest in smart thermostats and other energy management devices and software seems to indicate that this low-hanging energy fruit is a desirable one as well. However, many of these current and forthcoming devices seem to be overly complex for the average residential user, while also lacking a single standard that could allow them to easily tie into a variety of other smart home sensors, and some of these, such as the smart thermostats, only address a single energy draw — the HVAC system.
Of course, these new devices are a big step beyond having to estimate a home’s electric consumption by using the information on each appliance’s nameplate, and then calculate a daily or monthly figure by estimating the number of hours they are in use, or having to individually measure the electric demand for each device while it’s on and then do the same estimations for daily or monthly consumption rates.
But what if there was a better way, which was not only cheaper and simpler, but also more accurate? What if you could simply ziptie a small sensor onto your home’s incoming electric line and have it automatically determine exactly how much electricity is being used, by which devices, and when, without having to do any estimating or guessing? And what if it could work without the data having to leave your home, as many cloud-based home energy management solutions require?
That solution could be just around the corner, thanks the development of a sensor system and software by researchers at MIT, which could enable a renaissance in home energy monitoring and allow for the accurate measurement of home electricity consumption. The new system is said to have significant advantages over previous electricity monitoring devices:
“First, it involves no complex installation: No wires need to be disconnected, and the placement of the postage-stamp-sized sensors over the incoming power line does not require any particular precision — the system is designed to be self-calibrating. Second, because it samples data very quickly, the sensors can pick up enough detailed information about spikes and patterns in the voltage and current that the system can, thanks to dedicated software, tell the difference between every different kind of light, motor, and other device in the home and show exactly which ones go on and off, at what times.” – MIT News
In addition to the system’s accuracy and ease of installation, it is also said to allay any privacy concerns, as all of the detailed data from the system never leaves the home, with only “small subsets” of the data being sent out for processing, which also allows the system to bypass the need for “huge bandwidth and data transmission costs” that would otherwise be incurred.
And if that wasn’t good news enough for energy efficiency wonks, the system is also supposed to be worlds away from its competitors in terms of costs, as Steven Leeb, MIT Professor of Electrical Engineering, says that once it gets developed into a viable commercial product, it should only cost about $25 to $30 per residence. That’s a cost that could be recouped in energy savings very quickly indeed, through smarter energy management in the home or the the replacement of a few key appliances.
For those who would like additional details of some of the findings of the research team, a paper was just published in IEEE Sensors Journal under the title “Current and Voltage Reconstruction From Non-Contact Field Measurements.“
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