Customer Optimized Power Use and Cost

Project goal: To design a system of devices to track home energy use at the appliance level, calculate the corresponding cost, and identify money-saving opportunities.The system design incorporates an appliance current-measurement device and a method for transmitting the energy data to a central computer for analysis. Current draw of the appliance is measured continuously using a current transformer. An analog-to-digital converter sends the collected data to a microcontroller collocated with the transformer. The microcontroller processes the data and transmits the data via Wi-Fi to the main computer located at TEP. Tucson Electric Power offers homeowners several different rate plans, including reducing power cost during non-peak usage hours. Custom-designed software for the main computer manipulates data from the database, estimates energy cost using TEP rate plans, and presents information on a computer monitor with a graphical user interface.