Future office spaces and buildings will collect energy consumption data from the electrical devices used by their occupants, from refrigerators to the humble cell phone charger. This goal of this project is to develop and evaluate the devices enabling dense measurement of energy consumption throughout the building. We have started developing two hardware platforms. First, we designed a sensor circuit board which can be quickly installed by placing it between a plug and the outlet. Our second design is a custom designed surge protector can measure six independent outlets as well as turn them on and off. Both devices are able to transmit the data over a wireless mesh network. The data will be fed into a central server which filters the signal and eventually uses the information to make smart control decisions to reduce energy usage of the building.
Project end date: 08/12/13