mapawatt » smart meter

Preparing a Home for the Electric Car

pmapawatt — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Henry Ford with his Model T

As my electric Porsche Boxster reaches the final stages of construction, I’ve been working on preparing my home for the car. Bringing home an electric car is a different experience than trading in an old Volkswagen for a Toyota Prius. The Prius takes the Volkswagen’s place in the garage or driveway with the only disruption being the fanfare and excitement of having a new car.

Preparing for the evBoxster requires thought about such things as length of commute, where to charge the car, type of electricity at the point of charge, etc. These thoughts naturally lead to contemplating the bigger picture of how our nation will prepare a home for the electric car.

The early adopters of electric vehicles have the same spirit and enthusiasm of “living on the edge” that owners of the first motor cars had when they purchased the first mass-produced autos of the 20th century. However, will these electric car owners have to overcome the same obstacles?

In September of 1908, when the first mass-produced motor cars went into production, new owners had to make a place in their home for their Ford Model T. There were no gas stations for fueling, no auto parts stores for buying oil and no local repair shops every few miles to troubleshoot problems and service your car. Owners had to outfit their homes with the tools and equipment to fuel and maintain their vehicles and learn how their vehicles work to keep them on the road.

An Early Gas Station circa 1920

The Model T didn’t have a battery or starter. Owners had to hand-crank the car and then a magneto supplied electricity for the ignition system.

The cars did not have a water pump since Henry Ford understood that hot water would rise to the top of the radiator where it would be cooled by air flowing through it. This created a circulatory flow without a pump and is known as convection.

The cars also lacked a fuel pump. The gas tank was located under the seat – higher than the carburetor so gravity caused the flow of fuel to the engine. Owners had to learn to go up steep hills in reverse when there wasn’t enough fuel in the tank to feed the carburetor.

They had to buy gasoline at the hardware store from a barrel or from some pharmacies and grocery stores that sold gasoline as a side business. This often required having storage space at home for fuel and a way to transfer it from a barrel to the gas tank.

Imagine how carefully owners would have to plan for a trip in the motor car? A long trip on dirt roads built for horse-drawn wagons made it difficult to calculate range between refueling stops in towns that sold fuel. What if the car broke down or had a flat tire from the muddy, rutted roads that were the only paths available? These first car owners had to carry tools, parts and tires in case the inevitable happened away from home.

So how does this compare to early adoption of the electric car? We have paved roads built for cars that make it much easier to gauge range between charges. The entire country is electrified and there are power outlets in 99.9% of all structures in the country. We have AAA for nationwide towing capability and lots of other infrastructure that caters to the automobile.

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

I would wager that if you asked the average homeowner in 1908 if they could see a future of millions of automobiles traversing the country on paved roads at speeds of over 70mph, over 120,000 gas stations covering the nation and accessories sold in almost every type of store, they would have smiled and chuckled. This is the same smile and chuckle I’ve witnessed when visionaries speak of our nation dotted with charging stations and electric cars whizzing down the roads silently in every city and town across the country.

We have a lot of work to do to prepare for the coming of the electric car. We have to adapt our infrastructure to this new fuel source but this seems like a much easier hill to climb than those that Model T owners climbed in reverse over a hundred years ago.

However, I did check with the engineers working on my evBoxster and it does have a reverse gear.

Monitor and Control each outlet in your house!

Chris — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:46:34 +0000

Monitor/Control each circuit in your home!

In our Energy Tools for Newbies, Part 2 post we looked at several different types of energy monitors including the plug-in device monitor, whole-home moment of use, and whole home internet enabled data-logging monitors. And then there was one more type that was on the wish list. The grand-daddy of all home energy monitors. A monitor that could measure each circuit in your home, record the electricity that each circuit used, control that circuit, and provide real-time alerts on any abnormal activity (sparks, surges, lighting, consumption). Thanks to Computerized Electricity Systems (C.E.S.) the whole home circuit level monitor is now a reality.

I first mentioned C.E.S. in my list of energy monitoring companies, but it was very brief. Of all the different companies and methods of monitoring energy that the list mentioned, C.E.S. is by far the most advanced, in-depth, and most thorough solution that aligns the consumers desire to effectively control their energy consumption with the utilities smart grid needs. Click on this video to get an overview of their energy management system and why you could benefit from having it installed in your home (system prices range from $600-$3000 depending on the options, and its all field upgradable so you don’t need to buy the ultimate system day one but rather grow with your needs).

The idea is very simple: Replace the conventional electricity panel in your home or business (that is the same type of one that was installed with the world’s first light switch) with an actual energy management system made for the 21st century. You know that century right? The century when society realized that electricity didn’t just magically appear from the power lines entering our homes, it was made in large parts by power plants that operated out of harmony with their natural surroundings. In the 21st century, people realized they need the knowledge and tools to actively monitor and manage their electricity consumption. While switching off light switches and properly programming thermostats was all that was required to conserve energy in the 20th century; the 21st century demands those same energy saving tips still be employed, and then some a lot more.

And thus the need for an electricity panel that actually helps us save energy, not just distribute it. The company highlights the three main features that their product exhibits:

Scalable full real time monitoring and control of individual breakers / appliances (through a web-interface)
flexible demand response (by breaker)
alternative energy monitoring (net-metering) and utilization

I was able to see a product demo last night by their CEO of U.S. operations Shlomo Nimrodi, and I was very impressed. The company was founded in Israel (a resource starved country) and has been working on their product for over 5 years. Shlomo told me they received U.L. approval in March of this year and have been having good traction with their early installations and demos for some of the biggest players in the Smart Grid revolution. I was happy to see the rich set of reporting features built into the product and the ability of the system to send those reports to you at a frequency you set. The product works as either a stand-alone unit in a single home or business, or as part of a Utility program networked with all the other homes in the Utility’s service area and fully controlled through a web interface. The main competitor for C.E.S. for the attention of Utilities will be the smart-meter.

But the C.E.S. solution so much more attractive than a simple smart-meter because it can a) monitor individual circuits, not just the whole home and b) actually control those circuits! And still provide the utility anything they need for their billing and time of use applications.

A smart-meter by itself is basically just a tool for the utility to charge more during different hours of the day (“Time of Use”). Electricity is more expensive during hours of higher demand, so the utility would love to charge consumers a higher rate during these hours. The problem is that currently most meters on our houses (non smart-meters) are fairly “dumb” in that they can only calculate how much total electricity is used, not when it is used. In addition to helping consumers get a grip on how much energy they use, a smart-meter handles the important job of helping the utility charge you more when electricity is more expensive for them to produce. But the C.E.S. system allows precise monitoring coupled with control, which gives homeowners all the power they need to see where they are using energy and put a stop to it.

Much like I can monitor and control my home’s thermostat with the Ecobee smart thermostat, if I had the C.E.S. system installed I could do the same thing for all the electricity outlets in my house for each individual breaker! So in a few years, when we are all charged tiered rates for the price of electricity, we can program our C.E.S. systems to automatically turn up our thermostats or let the temperature in our electric hot water heater cool off a little bit when the price of electricity rises in the middle of a hot summer day. Likewise, when electricity prices fall at night, we can program the C.E.S. system to turn on the breakers controlling dishwasher or load of laundry and take advantage of the cheap cost of electricity for the energy intensive users.

And if that weren’t enough, the system can also tie-in alternative energy sources and easily manage that electricity with the electricity purchased from the grid. The system will even automatically switch loads to the cheaper energy source before it will consume any energy from the grid.

The U.S. still has a long way to go before a culture of conservation is ingrained in the majority of electricity users, but solutions like the one from Computerized Electricity Systems sure make me think that energy conservation efforts are going to meet much less resistance and much more success in the years to come.

TED 5000 is installed! It’s alive!

Chris — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:03:48 +0000

TED 5000 opened

***Update 10/6/09 – Google has announced they are working with the TED 5000 as a device partner for their Google Power Meter software. Follow the link above to learn about it and to update your firmware. This is pretty big news and will no doubt send sales of the TED 5000 through the roof! I spoke with TED customer service and they said that if you already own a TED 5000, the Google Power Meter software update will be on their site on Friday, 10/9/09. If you don’t already own a TED 5000 but buy a new one, the new unit will ship with the Google Power Meter software. I’m looking forward to seeing if the Google Power Meter software will have many advantages over their Footprints software!

Original Post:

In the future, when the smart grid is finally here, every home will have a smart meter. But the future is a long ways off, so there is no sense in waiting. Energy, Inc., the manufacturers of The Energy Detective and the TED 5000 announced on Tuesday, June 30th that the TED 5000 was ready to order. Well, my TED 5000 came by FedEx today and I had it installed and running in around an hour. While I have only had it a few hours, I am very impressed. While I have already covered the TED 5000 once in my post announcing its release date and some off its features, this will be an overview of some of the first things that have caught my attention.

The TED 5000 installs much the same way that the TED 1000 does. I really dont want to cover installation that much because if done wrong, it can be dangerous. While I’m not an electrician, I do have a decent amount of knowledge around electrical equipment, so I felt comfortable installing it. The biggest thing is to ensure the main breaker is turned off so no electricity is in the panel. But please don’t take this blog post as installation instruction. There are good installation instructions, getting started guide, and instruction manual that comes with the unit, but if you aren’t that comfortable around electrical equipment call an electrician. If the electrician is competent he will be done in under 30 minutes as it is not hard at all for someone who knows what they are doing.

Display Unit

I purchased the TED 5000-C, which is the model that comes with the Display Unit. You can purchase the TED 5000-G which does not come with a display unit and you would just access the data through your computer. I think the display unit is very cool, so I paid the extra $40 bucks and got it. The total amount I paid was $239.95 before taxes and shipping. When I opened the TED 5000 there were three smaller packages containing:

MTU – this comes with the current transformers (CTs) and wires and installs in your breaker panel. It sends data to the…
Gateway – This is plugged in an electrical outlet by your computer. It receives signals from the MTU over your home’s wiring. It then sends data over an Ethernet cable to your router or directly to a computer. It can also send data wirelessly (ZigBee) to the ….
Display unit – This is an option but I highly recommend it. It plugs into the wall for power but gets its data from the Gateway over a wireless connection. It looks like a big silver Ipod video.

Aside from separating the Gateway and the Display unit, the biggest change with the TED 5000 is the Footprints Software. They have done an amazing job with this. Unlike the TED 1000, which sold the software as separate and came on a disc, the TED 5000 includes the software in the price, but the software is retrieved directly from the Gateway, meaning there is no installation necessary. You simply have to type “ted5000″ in the internet address bar to access the software after the Gateway is connecting to your network. (see screen shot of software on my computer at the end of the post)

Initial configuration is all done through a set-up wizard. I did notice one error in the “Quick Start Guide” when setting up the software. The guide instructs you to start from the “Setup Menu”, but they must have made a revision, because there is no “Setup Menu”. You have to go to “Edit –> System Wizard Setting”. From there it is very straightforward.

The guide highly recommends plugging the Ethernet cable that comes out of the Gateway into a router, and not directly into a computer. I would also recommend this because it makes things much simpler. The beauty of having the software reside on the Gateway is that as long as the Gateway is connected to your home router, you will be access the data from any computer on your home network! I had to do this because my laptop is wireless and I use a VPN to get on my work network. When I tried to access the TED 5000 software while on the VPN, I had trouble connecting. When I booted up the desktop, which is not wireless, I was able to access the software right away. This is the beauty of having the software reside on the Gateway and connecting the Gateway to the router!

Energy, Inc. has definitely beefed up the footprints software and it is much more intuitive and helpful. There are many, many features. The biggest of which is that you can EXPORT THE DATA! If you recall, this is why I returned my TED 1000 unit. The Gateway unit has internal memory that stores the data (up to 90 days of hourly data, 24 months of daily data, and 10 years of monthly data). The TED 1000 had no internal memory so it had no way to store and export the data unless you used your computer for that function. Since the Gateway has internal memory it can store data when your computer is off. This is great for seeing how your house uses energy while you sleep or when you are on vacation.

Exporting the data is vey simple and the data is exported in a .CSV format so you can easily view it in Excel.

Finally, another great feature is that the Footprints software has a widget that displays your local weather. All you have to do is tell it your zip code. Now, my only suggestion for Energy, Inc. is that they store the average temperatures and export those values with the energy data. This way, you can see how the local weather is affecting your energy consumption and track those changes over the season.

Overall, the TED 5000 has been greatly improved and is one of the best tools I can think of to get control over your electricity consumption. Much more to come in the following weeks!

***Update – 8/18/09 – The TED 5000 iPhone app has been released and is available in the app store. Check out my review here: TED 5000 iPhone app

***Update – 9/13/09 – See what kind of stuff you can do with the TED 5000 data once you have it installed in my latest blog on outside temperature impacts on energy consumption.

***Update – 10/07/09 – Several comments have noted you can’t purchase the TED 5000 from Energy, Inc.’s website, but that has now changed and they do list them for sale and purchase online at the TED 5000 store.

***Update -11/11/09 – So don’t get me wrong. I still love my TED 5000 and the fact I can see my home’s energy consumption on my iPhone with Google PowerMeter but I’m wondering about the quality of the TED 5000. While my monitoring still works, my display unit conked out last week and I have yet to hear back from info@mapawatt about what I need to do to return it. Another Mapawatt team member had an out of box failure with an MTU unit and had some issues getting support as well. Come on TED! I know your swamped right now, but let’s get these problems solved asap!

Footprints Screenshot

What is this Smart Grid thing?

Chris — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:37:53 +0000

Power lines are part of the smart grid

If you want the official answer, check out the Department of Energy’s comments on the Smart Grid. If you want the answer you can explain to your children, stay here! Basically, the Smart Grid is a way for Utilities to better monitor and communicate electricity consumption and distribution to its customers.

Right now, our grid is composed of a millions of miles of power lines connected to a bunch of big, centrally located power plants (about 50% of which is coal). The electricity produced at the centrally located sites is pushed onto the electric grid and distributed to the homes. For the most part, the Utilities dont know where the electricity goes once it leaves the power plant and they don’t know how it is used.

How will the Smart Grid help the United States reduce our electricity consumption?

Right now, most of us still have “dumb” analog meters monitoring how much electricity we consume in our homes. Power comes in from the power lines (the grid), spins a little wheel with numbers on it (the more you use, the faster the wheel spins), and once a month a meter reader (you know, the guy your dog always barks at) comes by to check your meter. This is the way utilities have been doing it for decades. You would think things would have improved faster since the first days of indoor plumbing!

With the adoption of the Smart Grid, utilities will be able to see in real time what users who have Smart meters (meters that communicate information back to the utility over a network) are using. Users will also be able to see much more detailed statistics about how they use power. Basically, a smart meter is a TED that you and the utilities use together for your home.

This provides you with a monitoring function so you can better manage your consumption, but it provides the utility the ability to charge a tiered rate for their power. Basically, if you are using power on a hot afternoon (when electricity use is at its highest – mostly due to air conditioners) you will pay a higher rate than if you are using electricity at 3 AM, when demand is low. Why should what you pay for electricity not follow the economic laws of supply and demand?

With your current “dumb” meter, the utility has no clue what times you use your power, they just know the total value you use each month. The smart grid gives them the ability to see when you use that power, but it gives you that ability also, allowing you to know when to avoid using power in times of peak demand. While this is the main function of the smart grid, there are other benefits that will be covered in another blog.

Basically, the Smart Grid helps utilities and users better manage usage of electricity. Enabling us to be a cleaner, more efficient society!

For more information, check out Wikipedia’s comments on the Smart Grid or American Progress’ great report.