Home energy management system

Abstract

Nowadays, the demand of electrical energy is continuously being challenged with the context of environment awareness. Moreover, due to innovation in wireless communication technology and low cost embedded system, designing of a low cost energy monitoring system is a beneficial tool for the end user to manage and reduce energy wastage. The objective of this work is to design and implement a low cost energy management system for home use. The system would be capable of measuring and controlling the power consumed by the connected devices. All data gathered would be sent over internet and illustrated in a user friendly interface. This would enable the end user to remotely monitor and control devices from any fixed or mobile internet web page. The system would consist of a system of AC socket outlets (intelligent socket nodes) which communicate to a central controller. Every individual AC socket outlets will be equipped with a PIC microcontroller for data control and a relay driver. A low cost wireless transceiver will be used to transfer and receive data between the AC socket nodes and the central controller. Another PIC microcontroller will be used as the central controller and serves as a web server for data forwarding. Finally the tests showed that the intelligent socket nodes are capable of computing the power consumption of the connected load and may switch the load ON or OFF when requested by the central node. Moreover it was demonstrated that the intelligent node computed the voltage and current readings with up to 0.4% error and load power factor with up to 13% error, and transmitted the information wirelessly to the central controller.