With all of my power monitoring research I have moved back to an interest in 1-wire application. I found a cool lightening detector project that I want to save for future reference. 1-wire is so cool.
And I found a online store for 1-wire stuff.
Found a one wire power management device. Interesting.
Wow. I finally found it. This guy built what is just a simple Circuit Monitoring system that allows him to gain statistics on his power consumption!
I have not gone through it all, but I plan on trying to do this and will definitely document it!
Update - 31 July 2008 - 1639 ET
It did not take long to find a lot more information regarding power consumption. Amazing what using the right term in your search yields. I was chasing down the wrong path in my searches earlier this week. I have found a ton more information.
Nice tool for gathering stats
I recently moved into a new home. The reason for the move was to get closer to my wife’s work location as well as get into a house that was flat and had more “space” overall. We increased our space by ~800 sq ft, but we added a nice sized back yard and a nice sized lanai. That helps all around. That’s great, but with the increase in energy prices (and my increased mortgage) I want to find ways to save some money. I manage my money well by monitoring spending. I want to MONITOR my energy spend. How can I do that?
I have been doing some research on home energy management. So far, I have found a number of organizations that have “energy management”, however, most of these organizations do not cater to residential. Why is that? Are consumers that cheap? Do they really not care? I don’t think so. I think it is the utility companies at fault.
Yea, yea. I can blame many, but hear me out. A residential energy management system requires telemetry. Currently the best place to put the end point of telemetry is at the meter. However, I do not own the meter. My utility company owns the meter, I own everything behind the meter. Ok great. So I can either install my own meter (can I do that?) or I can put my own meter inside? Here is where that breaks down. Right now the companies that product telemetry software and hardware are doing it to make money. They make money by enabling the utility company to provide energy management as a service to customers. This allows the energy company to give the most expensive power to those that pay the highest rates and let the residential customers use the cheap energy when they need it (we usually never need to use expensive energy!).
This begs the question of why then would the telemetry device producers want to go outside - in? Why wouldn’t they want to penetrate all of the residential/commercial customers and have demand force the utility company to follow suite? Currently they approach a utility and the utility says - eh, too expensive to implement. With a inside-out approach, the telemetry device maker sells the devices and software to the consumer at a decent price point and then the consumer drives the demand to the utility? Sound familiar? Disrupt the cycle.
I want to monitor my residential energy. I want to see how much power each device is using. I can then decide to enroll in a energy management program through my utility or manage my energy myself. With all of the part-time residents in Florida, that seems like a NO BRAINER!!!
Time to do a bit of brainstorming and see what I can muster up. Sounds like an interesting niche. Especially at the start of the baby-boomer era where they want to save money and they have money to spend in saving money!!!
Go here and drag 5 trees to a state (preferably FLORIDA). Odwalla will plant a tree in a state park for you.
Nice.
Our house posting on Craigslist.
http://tampa.craigslist.org/rfs/558668019.html
Ok…so I’ve done some playing around this weekend. Updated the blog and added a new theme. Let me know what you think.
They are so lame as is Digg. Why, you ask? Well…front page of Slashdot this morning “Space Shuttle Atlantis Delayed Again”. Well, Slashdot…that’s OLD news. The shuttle is STILL scheduled to go up this morning between 11a and 12p ET. I’m sorry, but Slashdot continues to be about as lame as our politicians on the hill.
DRM Smackdown Day is October 3. You In? - Gizmodo
Get in on it. DRM is for big business only and has NO benefit to the consumer. Opt-in for YOUR rights to YOUR digital “stuff”.
Ok…so I created a aStore since I’m an amazon affiliate. Why not try it out?
amaz00p aStore
An interesting way to use del.icio.us!
SHIFT.Communications.Novell.SUSELinuxEnterprise10’s bookmarks on del.icio.us
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