Energy Use Monitoring

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mcflie1994
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Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2016 2:06 am

Energy Use Monitoring

Post by mcflie1994 »

There are many trends today in smart technology, smart homes, and energy consumption analytics. With today's focus on energy efficiency and more data, products like CURB and Neurio have added a way to monitor the use of energy in the home and know where that energy is going. With this feature people are able to better understand where their energy may be wasted, and how best to reduce that inefficiency. These systems are designed to work with AC power distribution and as such could monitor the total use by LumenCACHE but not break it down. As you roll out epoch and expand the capability of the system to power fans, PoE, thermostats, and other smart devices on top of lighting, will there be anyway to obtain data on specific energy usage of different devices or cards? If not currently, could this be added to future revisions of the LumenCACHE system?

In addition to the energy monitoring of these devices, would there be a way to make an add-on to complement this ability to monitor the remaining AC circuits for devices such as refrigerators, stoves, dryers, washers and others? This device could be its own card that is powered by LumenCACHE.

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dc
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Re: Energy Use Monitoring

Post by dc »

The addressable model of the L-CCS-x drivers has power sensing built in so you can get energy readings per device. A constant voltage version will follow. This allows power profiling apps to detect a problem with a device based on its historical power or absolute level triggers.

The PMM will do power profiling at the PDM group level and the supply or storage device level. Gen2 PMMs will work with LibRE PDMS.

There are a plethora of AC monitoring products. One of the HAX9 teams is making one with clamp on CT sensors. I'll see if they can make it connect to a PDM port via cat5 so you can simply run a cat5 to your AC breaker panel and monitor the loads. This would seamlessly aggregate the data at the LumenCache gateway for apps to consume.

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dc
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Re: Energy Use Monitoring

Post by dc »

The L2-EGW Gateway will use tuned approximation to measure right down to the individual light fixture load and usage. It's accuracy improves over time as it learns and when the main power monitor is added (via PMbus or sensor into the EGW, it will learn faster. Just like the original AC power meters were relatively inaccurate, this may not meet modern utility company regulations, but it will provide more than enough data to make smart applications that actually help save energy, instead of waste more!

Kris Tibbitts
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Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:20 am

Re: Energy Use Monitoring

Post by Kris Tibbitts »

Energy use monitoring, at least in residential, would just be a fad that was played with for a while and then forgotten. Alexa has a form of energy use built in now. If we could just get a mobile app and Alexa integration, then the majority of what people would need would be covered.

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dc
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Re: Energy Use Monitoring

Post by dc »

Tim, the accessories list is endless. LumenCache is a smarter foundation (why we also have www.foundation.energy) for all the smart products that need standby power in addition to main device power. Making this part of the building allows economies of scale and maintenance that are also solved by the design of LC.

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