Knowing how much electricity is being used, and for what purposes, is the first step towards reducing that amount. Unfortunately, most consumers of electricity have no way of knowing how much energy is being consumed by each of the many electric circuits in their home or business. This research project aims to solve that lack of information by developing a simple and easily installed system for measuring the energy consumption of a building’s individual electric circuits. The system uses convenient stick-on sensors. These sensors are simply attached to the circuit breakers inside a breaker panel, needing no wiring or electrician, and wirelessly report the individual electric currents — from which the energy consumption of each circuit can be inferred — to a secure repository on the Internet for easy access anywhere. These fine-grained, real-time energy consumption data will allow residential energy consumers and commercial building managers to make better decisions about their electricity usage.
Wireless Sensing of Circuit Breaker Currents
