30th of June 2010 – Big update, refined project direction and plans: modularization, local manufacturing, read more about it on the blog here. Also note that page below is being updated so some parts may be missing until its finished
Welcome
This is a project to develop and build open source energy monitoring, control and analysis tools for energy efficiency and distributed renewable microgeneration.
These technologies are at the heart of sustainable energy systems, monitoring and controlling how energy flows between the various parts of the system. These tasks can be achieved using a low cost, modular, open source microcontroller system known as an Arduino, powerful and flexible enough to form the basis of a wide range of systems.
PV installation monitors, solar hot water controllers, household energy monitors etc, can be assembled from a selection of modules linked together with an Arduino and configured using simple to use software libraries.
The diagram below gives an overview of how these applications can fit together:
Download: ProjectDescription.pdf
The potential advantage of a modular system is that it allows users to customize their energy systems. For example dynamically linking a variety of energy sources with their demand enabling all sorts of interesting increases in functionality while also economizing on parts. The diagram below is how we see this working:
Main points:
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Sensing energy in external environment
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Analysis and visualisation of energy over periods of time to increase our understanding of energy flow
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Actuators respond to environment and also act as inputs via feedback loop
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Remote interaction also possible via internet or wireless links
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Software in micro-controller allows a wide range of adaptability in behaviour
- Open source hardware and software allows changes to be made easily without the reliance on closed proprietory systems. This allows maintainability and flexible integration in the long term.
The Documentation
Note: the project is work in progress and at the moment much of the documentation is in need of reorganising along the lines of the following description:
First of all below are case studies and build examples of how the modules can be assembled together and used. Then the modules are divided into 3 types: Inputs, Actuators and Data modules. Each module has a description of what it is and how it works, a list of parts - including possible suppliers, circuit design (if applicable), and a section on how to connect it to an Arduino including details on software and calibration (if applicable).
Case Studies
Example installations of equipment (write-ups to follow soon):
- Cardiff Community Gardens PV installation – by Suneil Tagore
- Ogoronwy house sustainability project – by Trystan Lea
Builds
Examples of how the modules can be assembled together
Input Modules
Modules that sense things: Mains AC, low voltage DC, RTD Temperature sensors
Actuator Modules
Modules that control things: Relays
Data Modules
- Display: LCD nokia 3310, LCD 2.4", 7 segment
- Storage: USB pendrive datalogging, Computer based datalogging
- Communication: USB, Ethernet - pachube, Ethernet - mysql db, RF link
- Visualisation: KST, Java based EnergyLogger, Internet based graphing with flot (using ethernet - mysql db), Octave
Possible future modules and applications
- Modules: Light, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPRS
- Applications:Transport: (mpguino, electric vehicles), micro hydro, bike generators (educational displays), dynamic demand appliances (Washing machine, fridge control...)
Open Source
This project is an open source project. Following the principles of the Free Software Movement the software source code and hardware designs are available at no cost to everyone under the GNU General Public License. This makes it possible to do more than just use the technology; you can learn how it works from the physics of AC and DC electricity to electronic circuit design and software programming. You can build it yourself (and with others) and modify it to your needs. You can take part and benefit from a collaborative effort to develop and improve it. If it breaks you can learn how to repair it and when it comes to the end of its useful life it is easier to take apart so that different components and materials can be recycled in to new technologies.
At the heart of every commercially existing electricity monitor, central heating controller, solar water controller, wind and PV monitor is a proprietary microcontroller system and closed protocols. Replacing this with open source hardware, software, firmware and communications protocols leads to a more integrated system that ultimately yields significant overall benefits to the user in terms of convenience, usability and maintainability.
Local manufacturing
As part of this project we would like to explore and work towards the potential of local manufacturing (often called decentralized manufacturing or desktop fabrication) The idea of being able to make the things we want and need either in our own homes or in labs/workshops and small businesses in our local communities. To learn more have a look at the following projects that are working on the idea: RepRap the project to build an open source 3D printer and MIT FabLab’s; 100kgarages; a book by Kevin Carson and more resources on p2pfoundation manufacturing page.
Join us
Please feel free to join in and share your thoughts and ideas on this project. The scope for developing new applications and real world case studies/installations is limitless; posting your findings here is most welcome in this collaborative project. Hope to hear from you soon!
Forums
If you have any comments and questions, if you could use the forum that would be great. It could be easier to use and see what's going on than the comment threads. Note: There are a few people who have had difficulty with signing up to the forum, while others appear to have signed up with no problem. If you have any difficulty please let us know.
Comments
Hey Trystan, First of all I
Hey Trystan,
First of all I would like to thank you for all your work. With the help of your non-invasive energy monitor I designed and built my own Ambient Energy Information Display as part of a Masters Degree in Ireland. I will be exhibiting my energy monitor at Ars Electronica 2010 in Linz, Austria (http://www.aec.at/festival_about_en.php).
Check out my design at www.alanmeany.net/ambientknowledge.html
Thanks again,
Alan
Hey Alan That's really
Hey Alan
That's really awesome, nice idea! Thanks for letting me know about your work. Would you mind if I put together a blog post about what you have done?
I love the presentation too nice website!
Trystan
Hey, Thanks. Ya that would
Hey,
Thanks. Ya that would be no problem. Could you send me on a link to the blog post when it is done please?
Alan
Hi, Alex - I drove a Prius
Hi, Alex -
I drove a Prius from my local Community Car pool last week. Real-time energy efficiency monitoring does have an immediate impact on user behavior!
I was engaged by the implicit "game" element in the Prius presentation. Could I beat my average mpg from the last 5-minute block in this 5-minute block?
Inclusion of game elements in energy-monitoring displays is something for designers to consider.
Matt
@GreenICT
Hey Matt, Not sure how often
Hey Matt, Not sure how often Alex checks here, so if you want to catch him it may be better to post on his site http://open4energy.com
But I certainly agree with you comment, I've been dabbling with some thoughts on adding a game element to the energy monitor, Its already become a bit of a game for me checking my daily kwh :)
One of the things that I think would be cool that I've made a start on would be if you could measure your standart day 0 kwh usage profile and then compare subsequent days there after and it would give you a real time update of how your doing at say 8am today versus 8am on day 0. That way you could always tweek to be just below your day 0 profile... might be interesting.
Trystan
Sorry, Trystan. I had linked
Sorry, Trystan. I had linked to you from open4energy and forgot where I was.
Your idea of measuring current consumption against a baseline seems important and Day 0 is an obvious baseline. Ultimately, allowing users to specify another day or set points as baseline would be useful to, particularly for family motivation games with children, workplace contests, etc.
Matt
@GreenICT
Hey Trystan - Nice work on
Hey Trystan -
Nice work on this, you inspired me to order an Arduino and start playing with this a little.
One question and a couple suggestions -
The Farnell adapter you link to seems to be 9V DC out, not AC, so I'm a little confused - the link goes to a page that says "MC090S050U/F+ - ADAPTOR, REG, EURO, 9VDC, 500MA" - But ... DC?
One thing I'd like to do is monitor branch circuits, so I'm hoping to use smaller 40A or so CTs, DigiKey carries some, model CR8410-1000 for < US $10 each. The mfgr is CR Magnetics. But to do that I'd need more analog inputs; I think maybe an analog multiplexer like here could give you a lot of inputs. But, I'll just start with one for now to see how it goes. :)
Also I think the 10-bit ADC results in a pretty low resolution for the mains, so maybe interfacing to a higher-resolution ADC for the mains might be interesting.
The 1024 steps on a 15-20A circuit are probably enough...
Once branch circuits are monitored, I think a lot of interesting things could be done with the graphing.
Oh, and finally - do you have all of the code you've developed in a SCM (cvs, git, svn, whatever) anywhere?
Thanks! Awesome project.
-Eric
p.s. is http://power.openenergymonitor.org/ really accurate? Do you really stay mostly under 500W peak draw? That seems very low, if accurate it's impressive. :) I'm trying hard, and I can't get much under 500kWh per month. :)
Hey Eric Thanks for the
Hey Eric
Thanks for the comment and thanks for pointing out the incorrect adapter link, I've corrected it on the google docs but here's the link to safe you looking:
http://uk.farnell.com/_/mb090a050u-d/adaptor-euro-9vac-500ma/dp/1217064
I like the sound of your plan, it would be very interesting to monitor branch circuits! I would be interested to hear how it goes with the analog multiplexer if you have a go at that and the higher resolution ADC. I think the challenge with an external ADC is whether you can get a fast enough sample rate? You would need pretty fast communication with the Arduino...
Another option that could be investigated to increase accuracy while using the 10bit ADC is to have a switchable gain amplifier, analog devices have an app note describing this here.
I dont currently have all the code in a SCM, havent had a change to look at how to do it. It would be probably worth doing wouldent it, what would you recommend?
The graph should be pretty accurate, the details of the accuracy of it are on the mains ac non invasive 2 page. I've been the only person in the house for the last couple of days so it is a bit lower than usual. I did a bit of hovering yesterday and I also spiked on the immersion heater for an example 9:10 :)
Just had a look at your blog, I like the look of the solar roof! Awsome blog.
Trystan
Hi, i am working on a similar
Hi, i am working on a similar project. I found yours very complete, easy to do and most important accurate. My prototype works on a triphasic network. It is the same, but 3 Voltages and currents to measure. I have a few questions: should i measure the neutral current, or its better to calculate it?. I am interested in measuring other parametres also, like the commercial network analysers do, like THD, do you know how should I do that?
Ezequiel.
Hi Ezequiel, thanks for your
Hi Ezequiel, thanks for your comment. Could you elaborate on why you think you need to measure neutral current, is your network 4-wire three phase? I found an application note by microchip here which might be useful. I'm afraid I have only worked with single phase so far. I haven't tried to do THD yet either so cant advise on that. Sorry that I cant be of more help.
Energy Saving Scams A warning
Energy Saving Scams
A warning to all home energy enthusiasts, there are a number of energy saving scams being carried out at the moment.
Please do not get duped by any one of them. They are usually easy to spot for the informed, as I believe the readers of this project will be, but they are misleading for many consumers.
Please spread word of these where possible. The perpetrators have used Google search, and Google adWords to create an extensive network of resellers, loaded with fake content and testamonials.
We are doing all we can, but this is one time where the open source community can really engage, we can cross link our pages and send this stuff to where it belongs.
Here is the Complete List of Scam Energy Saving products and technologies. The worst of them are the power factor scams, lots of money involved, offers for Free audits gets you a salesperson standing in your home, using your data to deceive you!
Listed as an open4energy Home
Listed as an open4energy Home Energy Monitor
My apologies, a long overdue addition to the complete list of home energy monitors at open4energy.com
I have added new section to the list called Open Source, and included your project.
http://open4energy.com/technology/list_home_energy_monitor
This is the only project I know of. We send loads of compliments and let us know of any additional way we can support you.
Alex
Thanks Alex for adding the
Thanks Alex for adding the project to your list.
Hi! I've read all the
Hi! I've read all the description of the arduino-sensor system to measure dc produced by a small windmill. i'd like to know how you wire the circuit to the turbine. I mean: in this schematic http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/sites/default/files/DC01.png you create a voltage devider with the RVDa and RVDB resistors, but what about the op-amp and the transistors?? why do you use them? and how do you get the voltage from the windmill??
thanx a lot!!
Hey Akis The RVDa and RVDB
Hey Akis
The RVDa and RVDB resistors are used for the voltage measurment.
The Rsens, RA, RB, Opamp and transistor are all needed for the current measurment.
Maybe one thing that isnt clear in the circuit diagram is that the microgeneratore voltage which is labeled as 12V in the diagram actually varies between the battery voltage (if you have one connected) up to potentially 20V depending on loads and how fast the turbine is spinning.
Hope that helps :)
just one last question: if I
just one last question: if I don't have the battery, but the microgenerator (which genetares in my case 24V) is connected to the inverter (so you have AC current), what would I do? I have to use a diode?
Hey Akis, what is your
Hey Akis, what is your microgenerator?
it's a 24V wind turbine
it's a 24V wind turbine connected to an inverter
i've forgotten to say that
i've forgotten to say that it's a 5 kW wind turbine
Hey Akis, quite a substantial
Hey Akis, quite a substantial system! good work! is it a dometic system?
I havent yet had experience with wind turbine - grid tie inverter setups so Im unsure of what the best practice is with connection. So far I have tested it with a 500W turbine connected to the batteries as I describe on the 12V DC page. Im pretty sure however that you connect the circuit up in the same way in your case to the inverter instead of the batteries. I dont see why you would need a diode?
The main things to consider that I know of are: the shunt needs to be rated above your maximum current value and secondly for saftey you could put a fuse in series with the voltage dividerand both RA resistors. You might also prefer to use the non-invasive hall effect method for current measurment which would increase the saftey.
Like I said my experience is currently limited to the smaller 500w turbine with battery connection so only try to implement the above if your happy that you know what your doing.
Let me know your thoughts and how it goes.
Trystan
open4energy - energy measuring
open4energy has released its energyManager open source solution, built as an extension to RRDtool and the Cacti graphing solution.
A detailed tutorial on how to download and implement this free solution for measuring exactly how much energy is being used by the IT equipment is available from the site.
There is no doubt that a traditionally energy inefficient IT industry has room to make savings of between 10% and 20%. But overstretched IT departments seem reluctant, even with FREE software, to take the time to make these savings. There are just so many items of higher financial impact to be addressed.
The question we are left with is:
What will it take to make energy saving a priority?
Clearly the open source movement will make a difference, and we believe that if the solutions can be made sufficiently simple to implement, and the steps to affect change obvious, then our natural inclination to care for our resources will be allowed to take hold.
To participate in the discussion visit http://open4energy.com/blog
I see you are also using Drupal for your site. This is excellent, in my opinion, see http://open4energy.com/forum to see how well Drupal manages forum's and blogs - you may not want to have contributors use multiple sites.
Also, I need a SNMP supported device to use for home computing, either wireless, or wired for the home server etc, any idea do let me know.
Hello Alex
Hello Alex
To reiterate my reply to your email and to add a few things. open4energy looks like a great initiative. Thanks for letting me know about RRDtool and Cacti.
Right now my priority is to work on building a device that can measure whole house electricity use with both a 7-segment output and graphing on a local computer and also DC power monitoring for the wind turbine.
A quick search for SNMP + Arduino came up with this device:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/05/arduino_wifi_shield.html
It should be possible to connect it up to the sensing electronics and arduino to do what you need.
Like you say drupal handles forums well. I would say that both sites are complementary.
Trystan
Wireless AMR
Hi
Trystan Lea,
I would say that In a way you have prepared your website is very nice and anyone who will visit it for a once will definitely comeback when he need it.
Website is very good looking and contains good data to get over about energy Meter.
One thing I could not get about is why would you make it an open source. How it benefits to you?????
And I am also working on Wireless Automatic Meter Reading Design and I have done with it.
It is capable of transmitting data wireless on a multihop zigbee network base on Atmel chip set.
I have also developed website which can display consumption of energy meter on a internet.Of course it is running right now on Intranet level.
Hope we can work together if you got any bright idea.
I will soon complete my Master degree from India.
Hello Mahesh
Hello Mahesh Sutariya
Thanks for your kind words about the site.
In writing a response to your question: why open source? It soon became an essay and so I have created a page here with what I hope answers your question.
Your wireless automatic meter reading design looks great! Im intending to try wireless soon, I have 2 Xbee modules from adafruit ready for when I get to that stage. First Im going to put together a 7 segment LED display, hopefully this weekend.
In response to your question on the wind turbine blog about combining energy monitoring with wind power generation. Monitoring the power generated by a micro wind turbine such as the hugh piggot turbine should be very similar to measuring power consumed. In the case of the hugh piggot wind turbine the voltage of the electricity is 12V and the current can be up to 50A and so to measure the wind turbine current you need a sense resistor like this one.
Hope that helps
Trystan
Hi Trystan, Really like this
Hi Trystan,
Really like this project and very well documented.. I'm working on building one myself.
I was looking at the arduino sketch for the invasive method (the old version, the new version link is broken coz it says the webpage cannot be found) and i was wondering what if I dont want to download Arduinocomm and would just like to view the measurements and the calculated values for Vrms , Irms, Power, Power factor , Frequency and Energy (kwH) on the monitor itself would i need to make changes to the arduino sketch?
Thanks for your help
Anna
Hey Anna It's been a while
Hey Anna
It's been a while since I looked at the invasive method, but just realized that the non-invasive method arduino sketch will work just fine for the invasive method, so I have updated the invasive method software bit with that info. Hopefully it will make things a little simpler and it should do what you want it do to, have a look and let me know if there's anything I can clarify.
Thanks,
Trystan