Welcome
This is a project to develop and build open source energy monitoring and analysis tools for energy efficiency and distributed renewable microgeneration.
28th of January 2010 – Documentation finished for the whole home energy monitor.
The energy monitor is working away logging energy consumption data, giving some informative readouts and nice looking graphs! there's more about it in the blog post here and the documentation here.
Left: The display, Middle: The main unit with CT sensor, Voltage sensing, USB datalogging... Right: Ethernet unit for internet connectivity
How the documentation works
The documentation is split into three main parts:
1) Build a basic setup
This consists of a:
Sensor -- Arduino -- simple computer output
And at present there are a several sensor types available with the basic setup for each one documented. Once you have the basic setup working it can be extended in several ways:
2) Extend your basic setup
The basic setup of any given sensor can be extended in a number of ways from computer based storage and graphing to internet based storage and graphing, from 7-segment displays to wireless Xbee communication and so your setup could look like this:
Sensor -- Arduino -- Xbee ))) ((( Xbee -- Arduino -- Arduino Ethernet -- Web based graphing
Super modular design
The overall design is very modular making it possible to customize as much as you like, you could go for a simple setup with a single sensor connected to a computer via USB logging to a file or you could go for a massively complex setup with multiple sensors, wireless communication, 7 segment displays, computer based graphing, internet based graphing and whatever else you would like to connect up.
3) Complete setup examples
Build a basic setup
Energy Use
Mains AC: non-invasive 2 - Voltage, Current and powering the arduino
Non-invasive measurement of mains voltage using a power adapter and mains current using a CT sensor. Useful for measuring electrical energy used by the whole house/building. Doesn't require any high voltage work.
Mains AC: non-invasive 1 - Current only
Non-invasive measurement of current only using a clip-on current transformer (CT) sensor. Doesn't require any high voltage work.
Measuring electrical power used by devices connected to a mains AC power strip using the invasive current sensing resistor method. Requires working with high voltage's. Development currently discontinued in favour of the above non-invasive methods.
Energy Capture
Measurement of electrical power produced by micro-renewables including the Hugh Piggot wind turbine using the current sensing resistor method.
12V DC: non-invasive:
http://openenergymonitor.blogspot.com/2009/09/experiments-with-hall-effect-current.html
http://openenergymonitor.blogspot.com/2009/09/hall-effect-sensor-circuit-diagram.html
Extend your basic setup
Local computer based Data Graphing, Analysis and Storage
Using KST for graphing.
OpenEnergyMonitor Java based software
Display
How to add a Display - details how to add a display that has a 4 7-segment digits a mode changer to make it possible to cycle through the various values to be displayed and a frequency indicator that shows when the grid is under or above 50Hz.
Storage
How to add USB pen data logging
Internet connectivity
Arduino Ethernet Shield + perl + mysql + Flot based graphing
Wireless communication
Complete setup examples
How to build a whole home energy monitor
that has a display for easy, quick access to current energy use information, usb datalogging for detailed long term data storage and internet connectivity for online graphing.
Other
Mains AC Power measurement theory
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 Licence.
The project being open source gives the following potential:
It 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 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.
Contribute
Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions or if youd like to become a developer.
Forums
If you have any comments and questions, if you could use the forum that would be great. I think it will be easier to use and see what's going on than the comment threads.
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