Measuring the Energy You Use?

centdollarman asks: "Everyone keeps talking about how energy is being wasted here and there. Energy bills keep soaring for me, and now I'm back to paper and pencil: just taking notice of the power meter values. Mine is nice, as it has a cute LED that blinks at 1/1000 of a KWh. However, there has to be a better way to do this, and I've started searching the web for someway to count my usage, automatically. Of course, this is easier said than done. It would also be nice to have some way to (cheaply!) measure the power consumption of a single device." So, for the energy conscious among us: how are you measuring the power you use?

Stating the obvious

[iainl]

Don't you have meters anywhere you could keep an eye on?

Extensive tracking on a per device basis is probably going to use up energy itself, so I'm really not sure if that bit will achieve too much.

I have a system that periodically updates me

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I use a periodic system to update me of my power usage. It comes in the form of a letter from the power company and it tells me how much power I've used as well as the cost for usage for that month. It's really convenient, but I am not really interested in the dirty details of where all that usage is going.

I suppose if you're really interested, you could try turning off your A/C or electric heating. Kill the water heater except immediately before showering. Turn off lights you're not using. Turn off any computers that are unessential. And CLOSE THE GODDAMNED DOOR. WE'RE NOT COOLING THE WHOLE OUTSIDE!

Conserve it anyway first

[arun_s]

1. Switch off your computer when you're not using it. (unless you're running a really important server or something. SETI@home does not count.
2. Switch off the lights when you leave a room.
3. The TV doesn't need to run all the time.
Every little bit helps. If you're already doing stuff like this & you're bills are still soaring, then you can try the measurement parts.

Easily said.

[SharpFang]

It's easy to say "switch everything unnecessary off".
Sure I do switch off the obvious things. Then still my bill is high. Then I check: The monitor (22" CRT) is rated at 40 Watt in standby mode. The ethernet switch is pretty hot. I have no idea how much the laser printer needs in stand-by, but likely not all that little. All these toys plugged into the USB hub, do they remain off when I power off the computer? The BNC ethernet wire was shocking me with electricity. I grounded it, but how much does leak to ground that way? The grounding sparks a little when disconnected. If I leave the battery charger plugged in, it's warm even if it's not charging any batteries. ...and so on. I switch all the huge energy hogs off, but there are many dozens of small devices which pull 5, 10 watts of energy, 24/7 and it really adds up. A quick and easy way to measure actual power usage of a device would be really nice.

AMR meter

[dschl]

See if you can get your power company to install an electrical meter with radio-read capabilities. I'm more familiar with water meters, which come in at least two flavours - radio read that sends a signal back in response to a message from the meter reader (using a hand-held meter reading "gun"), and a unit which sends a small packet of meter information every 1-5 minutes. Some info on Wikipedia about automatic meter reading [wikipedia.org] (AMR).

Then all you have to do is possibly reverse engineer their protocol, or at least connect a radio transceiver to your PC and program your own meter reading software.

Of course, I think you are worrying too much about having instantaneous data. I would approach your power usage as an environmental auditing problem. Your power use is more a result of your long term habits and the devices you use. Does it really matter whether your computer and 22" CRT use 600 or 800 watts combined when you know that a Mac mini and LCD would probably use half of that or less? Do you really need to leave your computer on overnight? Does it matter that you have energy saving light bulbs if you leave every light in the house on all day? Is your refrigerator more than 10 years old? Are your appliances energy star rated? Do you hang your clothes to dry outside whenever you can, or do you use an electric clothes dryer?

For power consumption, average long term values are more going to be more important than real-time numbers. By changing your habits and the way you use energy, and tracking the changes and the effects on power consumption as you do that, you'll have more of an impact, that will last far longer than your current fascination with your power usage. You might want to measure the total energy used in a day or a week by various appliances such as your fridge or your TV, in order to determine whether it makes sense to replace them with more energy-efficient models. Beyond that, electrical powered devices use power, just like cars use gasoline. If you choose to use them, you're going to have to pay.

Turn off everything you don't need

[borfast]

This seems pretty obvious but I constantly see people leaving stuff turned on when they're not using it.

Leaving the TV set on when you're not watching, leaving the light on when you're not in the room, leaving the water running while you brush your teeth, you name it, wate of energy and natural resources seems to flow in some people's bloodstream!

And those poor bastards who use that lame-excuse-for-an-instant-messaging-program called MSN Messenger have a special way of wasting energy: leaving their computers on all the time so they can have their nicknames online [borfast.com]. Why? Want to receive messages that are sent to you while you're not logged in? Use ICQ. I know the new version of MSN Messenger (or Windows Live Messenger, or whatever) stores messages for you while you're away but ICQ has always done it. Or even better, why not use e-mail, which serves exactly that purpose - sending messages that can be read at a later time?