..What is my motivation.
I would like to put the power of INFORMATION to my financial gain.
I am looking at measuuring and documenting utility (energy) useage and logging to data file for graphical analasys.
I have found products on the internet to add to my electrical panel that will document kwh which is what I pay money for for electrical utility. I have not made the purchase yet.
My next project... I have a natural gas meter that is mechanical, and has to be read each month (or estimated) by our gas supplier to determine billing. What would help me is if I could collect DAILY gas use electonically to data.
Is there any simple in-line gas flow meter that has a pulse output or analog output based on gas flow?
Step one of automation should be to quantify BEFORE data, then apply the automation, and then review the AFTER data, to determine the return-on-investment.
FIRST if your house is not as insulated as it could be spend your money there. Best return for the buck.
2 Did a few energy recovery projects in operating facilities. Agree that measuring consumption is mandatory before you do anything.
3 A lot can be done with just the utility meters - I found a daily reading was quite adequate - of course as with any statistics the more readings the more accuracy AND the more nuisance and cost.
4. Used Fluke data logger and flow sensors and thermocouples to measure heat obtained from waste water and put back into cold supply water ie Q = MC dT
5. You can get flow meters (water gas etc) with electronic output check with gas company. Another method is to measure gas flow (say furnace or dryer) get value of cfm THEN use the start relay to measure time to get time x flow rate = volume.
6. Not sure cost efficacy of monitoring each and every load at the power panel. Major loads of course -- but you can also measure these using input power (like the furnace) and just measure the run time and multiply by power flow.
Do not overlook the cheap n dirty n quick ways of measuring energy used by appliances. Dryer - a load is about 4 Kw Hr.
You can get this from
970 BTU/lb x WEIGHT (wet clothes - dry clothes)
A key thing to remember is if you are doing this to save dollars is
1. Turning things off or not using is free
2. Extracting wasted energy (dryer exhaust) takes more equipment and money. It will pay off sooner for large family than small family.
Dan Bentler