[LINK] Monitoring power consumption of individual appliances

[Tom Worthington]

On 08/06/12 20:17, David Boxall wrote:
> <http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=2&newsstoryid=9322>
> Savvy students' solution can cut costs of power bills 29 May 2012
>
> ... 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. ...

Continuously monitoring the power use of individual appliances will not 
appreciably help consumers decide when to replace them. Appliances come 
labelled with their average energy consumption and that consumption is 
not going to vary greatly over the life of the appliance. All the 
consumer has to do is compare the rating of their current appliance with 
that of new appliances to see when is worth changing.

A simple web site (or an "App") would be sufficient for making appliance 
buying decisions. The consumer could enter details of the appliance they 
have and the web site could show them how much energy could be saved 
with a new appliance.

One very simple and cost effective way for the consumer to save energy 
is to downsize their appliances. As an example, if they buy a smaller 
fridge, it will use less energy and cost less, than a big fridge.

The simplest and most effective way to reduce appliance energy 
consumption is with minimum mandatory energy efficiency requirements. 
Australia has an energy rating scheme for appliances, but it is not the 
number of stars which an appliance has which achieves most of the 
savings, it is that there is a minimum efficiency, below which the 
appliance is banned. The stars are just a marketing gimmick.

About all I can see a monitoring system doing is to use more power and 
cause the consumer frustration, when they see how much power their 
appliances are using at peak time, with the realisation there is nothing 
they can do about it in the short term.

Some of this is touched on in my book, "ICT Sustainability: Assessment 
and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future": 
http://www.tomw.net.au/ict_sustainability/


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards
Legislation

Adjunct Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/