Introduction


Energy is a utility that seems to be taken for granted these days. It magically comes to us from PG&E and we use it without a second thought to any form of consequence, whether it is the cost in dollars of our actual usage or the environmental impact it may cause. In an effort to make people more aware of the amount of energy their home uses, our group would like to develop a product that helps people monitor their home's consumption. Our whole home monitoring device will allow people to view what their home is consuming so that they may make more intelligent decisions about their electrical usage.  The monitoring system will allow for monitoring via a in-home, wall mounted monitor or via a website. We are requesting $479.43 to cover the material costs and the costs of fabricating the first prototypes.

Overview

Our project goals are to be able to monitor an entire home’s energy consumption with the least amount of intrusive equipment as possible. Our plan allows us to calculate the total home's power as well as individual appliance usage, all from devices that will be installed inside the breaker panel. We will be using measurement tools called current transformers (CTs), which allow us to measure current flowing through wires. The advantage of using a CT based monitor is that we will be able to monitor the whole homes consumption and individual loads as well.  We will also offer the option of monitoring a solar electric system.

We will use a wall mounted LCD display that may be mounted inside the home. The monitor will report the home’s electric consumption, the solar electric system production, and the individual home loads.  The monitor would retrieve data from the breaker panel over the in home Wi-Fi. The CTs we will be using are revenue grade, meaning they are very sensitive and extremely accurate to within five percent. The customer will also be able to view a side by side comparison of their solar array production vs energy consumption. We will be including the option to access their information from any computer that is connected to the Internet, and will be viewable in a similar interface to that of the LCD.

The Team

Electrical Engineering Students: Kevin Suiker and Nick Soleil

Industry Advisor: David Kaiser, PE   Enphase Energy

Faculty Advisor: Saeid Rahimi

Conceptual View of Monitoring Display showing Home Consumption and Solar Production

 

 

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Conceptual Schematic

The diagram below gives a brief explanation as to how the system will be interconnected. The CTs that are attached to the circuits in the breaker panel will connect to the WF32 microcontroller. It will then send its gathered information via Wi-Fi to the Raspberry Pi (another microcontroller, not actual pie). The Raspberry Pi will be connected to the LCD to allow the customer to view their information by navigating through its menu. Outside access to this information will also be allowed by connecting to the Raspberry Pi through the cloud.

 

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Budget

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Conclusion

This project consists of gathering data from multiple sources and using wireless communication between devices on a local network as well as outside access through the cloud. Being able to interface these sensors with multiple microcontrollers is an extremely useful ability in today’s world with embedded systems becoming more common throughout our everyday lives. What we will learn from this project can be applied across many fields of electrical engineering.