Witty and/or Corny Title Related to Knowing How Much Energy Your Home Uses

What’s Your Watt?!?! (sorry…)

Home Energy Monitors with Tom

April 22, 2010

Three Ways I Play ‘The Energy Detective’ – ‘TED’- Proprietary ‘Footprints’ web browser-based

‘dashboard’

- Standalone display Viewing data with Google’s PowerMeter- Same data, different portal

Pepco’s online ‘My Account’- Based on a guy coming out and reading the normal

old electricity meter on the side of our house

The Energy Detective From Energy, Inc.- http://www.theenergydetective.com

Not very cheap - $239.95 for my setup A challenge to install, though can be DIY- I managed it myself, barely

Has its own interface software, but also compatible with Google’s PowerMeter

One second data intervals- Nearly real-time

Fridge from CEE Super-

Efficient Home Appliance

Initiative list

Toaster

Dehumidifier

Fridge

Google PowerMeter Public API, so in theory any clever IT

engineer can make devices work with it- Two commercial stand-alone devices

presently work with it One in US (TED), one in Europe

- Several utilities have smart meters that work with it

Teething problems, like providing old data

Still in development- Some quirks, some bugs

Ten-minute intervals

Budget function a bit odd…

Also at home vs. not at home

Can’t see refrigerator

cycling on and off

Pepco’s Online Tools Based on regular meter-reading data- Either guy comes once a month to read it or

someone occasionally reads it and it’s otherwise extrapolated.

- Basically a one-month interval Limited functionality, buggy Requires you to turn off some browser security

settings Some utilities provide more info- OPower, an Alliance Associate

Lessons Learned Resistance heating uses a lot of energy, but

not often - Toaster, electric kettle (lots of tea), hair dryer, hair

straighteners- We have natural gas water heater, air heater, and

cooking – which none of these systems measure The refrigerator uses a lot of energy, though,

in theory, a lot less than most- We already did what we can realistically do

The dehumidifier uses quite a lot- I need to clean gutters and regrade the yard

Lessons Learned So have I taken any particular action

based on this data?- Coming soon to ase.org! ‘At Home With Tom!’

High-tech guilt-trip? Popular appeal?

Thank You! Questions?

You know where to find me