monitoring power with the pecan street project

Lilly helping with the installation.

We are now part of the Pecan Street Research Institute’s project to better understand how people use electricity. The Streeters sent over a friendly electrician to wire up our circuits to a wifi interface that collects and sends data back to their central facility for analysis. They measure nearly every circuit in the house by placing small clamp-on ampmeters around each wire heading out of the electric box and into the house. These devices connect into a collection/transmission device which then shoots the info through the interwebs to Pecan Central. We can then log in to see what's going on with each of our circuits.

The data is collected in real-time, so if someone turns on a light, I see it show up on a graph like one of the ones below. Once we get solar installed, we'll also be able to see how much electricity we're generating and then take a look at the net. Pretty neat! I hope to wander about the house and see what phantom power we have being used about the house.

Hopefully in the near future they will start doing something similar for water!

Whole house energy usage for past month.

Here's what the refrigerator looks like. Spikes are for defrosting.

Guest bedroom; increased activity due to bride sleeping upstairs because of my surgery and new kittens. This will allow the Pecaners to see (1) when we have company, (2) when we have kittens, and (3) when we are having marital difficulties.