[LINK] Monitoring power consumption of individual appliances

[David Boxall]

An interesting idea. Wouldn't the cost of all those SMSs add up? Perhaps 
an always-on NBN connection would come in handy.

<http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=2&newsstoryid=9322>
Savvy students' solution can cut costs of power bills

29 May 2012

Consumers could save on power bills thanks to an energy saving solution 
devised by two savvy students at the University of Sydney's Faculty of 
Engineering and Information Technologies.

The 'MyPower Energy Platform' has been designed to monitor the power use 
of individual appliances and to help consumers decide how and when to 
use or replace them.

The system allows for continuous monitoring of major household 
appliances such as washing machines, clothes dryers, microwaves, 
electrical water heaters and refrigerators via a smart plug with an 
embedded GSM unit.

Developers of the technology are two PhD students, Mahboobeh Mogaddham 
and Waiho Wong. Wong says: "The plugs sense actual power usage and 
transmit the information via SMS reports to a cloud-based data warehouse 
every 30 minutes.

"The householder can then access their electricity consumption data and 
drill down to individual appliances' cost based on peak, shoulder and 
off-peak rates, through the MyPower website."

Fellow student Moghaddam says: "Access to this data will allow users to 
optimise their appliance usage and take advantage of lower electricity 
rates by remotely scheduling or switching off the appliance via the 
smart plug. We are excited because this platform can provide a 
technically and economically feasible solution for households to reduce 
their electricity consumption by up to 10 percent - a significant cost 
reduction over the life of their appliances."

The pair is conducting their PhD under the supervision of Professor 
Joseph Davis, Director of the Knowledge Discovery and Management 
Research Group.

Professor Davis says research shows householders' ability to understand 
and reduce energy consumption is severely constrained by the aggregate 
nature of reporting found on power bills.

"The proposed solution 'MyPower Energy Platform' captures highly 
disaggregated data at the appliance level and transforms it into 
actionable knowledge via analytics-based applications."

The solution has been awarded the inaugural NASSCOM IT Technical 
Innovation Award, presented at CeBIT, with judges declaring it 'an 
example of practical innovation in taking a number of proven technology 
components and tackling a pressing issue'.

Professor Davis says the platform has the potential to be used by both 
manufactures and governments to develop incentive schemes for households 
to replace older, high-consumption appliances or to support education 
and awareness campaigns around energy efficiency and green house gas 
reduction.

-- 
David Boxall                    |  When a distinguished but elderly
                                |  scientist states that something is
http://david.boxall.id.au       |  possible, he is almost certainly
                                |  right. When he states that
                                |  something is impossible, he is
                                |  very probably wrong.
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