Residential Energy Monitoring Project
Implemented a circuit-level energy monitoring system for a large residential client to help them understand high monthly energy usage and identify practical ways to reduce it.
The client lived in a large house and was using a significant amount of energy on a monthly basis. They wanted a way measure, understand, and put in context what they were using the most energy on and where they could find simple options to cut back. We put in place current transformer (CT) clamps on each individual circuit on all of their breaker boxes, then fed power & current information to individual transducers then a commercial data aggregation box via Modbus.
The data was then collated and sent over serial-over-IP to our backend platform where it was stored, analyzed, and graphed. We presented data on a custom dashboard highlighting individual circuits and overall results, then provided meaningful options to improve their situation.
Outcomes
- Meaningful energy reduction for our customer
Lessons learned
- Most power is spent on HVAC in a 9000 square foot house 😆
- Pool pumps are also a big contributor!
- The engineering effort was tedious, but executed well and we knew we could trust the results.
- At the end of the day, there are probably better ways to shortcut to the results.