Home Energy Monitoring a new trending technology

"Home energy monitoring is for everyone. This is a market we estimate at $5 billion by 2015," said Rich Hubert, VP of Smart and Communities at Cisco, a leader in this emerging technology. An IBM research survey "Understanding the smart energy consumer"—which surveyed 5000 respondents in 2008—indicated 21% of households will install home energy management in the next few years. 

Home Energy Monitoring Systems set to become a $5 billion market

The cost of energy is increasing day by day and people are now looking for ways to reduce their electricity bills, leading to rapid adoption of HEMS, or Home Energy Management. The simplest way to reduce your energy bills is by reducing your energy consumption. However, many people have no idea on where they should start from in this endeavour. Many studies have revealed that homeowners can successfully reduce their energy consumption by monitoring it on regular basis. This is where a good home energy monitoring system (HEMS) can help you.  

What is HEMS?

A home energy monitoring system is a device that measures the energy usage at home and helps you in saving energy. Most of these devices are easy to use and require little electrical knowledge. It tells the house owner about the total energy consumption and also shows its breakdown for heating, home appliances, cooling, lighting, and so on.   

Carsten Steenberg, of Powerwise Systems, explained it this way: "We call it the Prius effect. It's amazing how you can change behaviours by having information in people's face. People who drive Prius tend to drive more economically, just because they are faced with their consumption in real time." Carsten's company installs Powerhouse Dynamic's eMonitor, a product he helped develop at a cost of around $2million. He pointed to a survey of 200 users of eMonitor, where 98% of respondents saved energy. 

Greenhouse gases and reducing consumption

Many home energy monitoring systems also estimate the amount of greenhouse gases that are discharged and cost of energy that is being consumed."The early adopters for this were utility companies and especially solar companies," said Melissa Lacas of TED (The Energy Detective) who make an inexpensive energy monitor ow used in "hundreds of thousands of homes." With the use of these devices, there has been significant reduction (averaging 12.6%) of energy consumption by providing the real time feedback to consumers to enable them to change their habits in using energy.   

However, HEMS will not turn off appliances or lights for you, without optional accessories. It cannot save electricity directly for you, but will definitely help you in finding out the ways by which you can reduce your electricity consumption.   

The TED 5000 monitor is one of the least expensive home monitoring system, easily installed. The simple display reads out real time data and shows cost, energy usage and more. Home Energy Monitoring Systems

You can buy energy monitoring systems with varying complication levels depending upon their functions and your needs. A few, such as the Powerhouse Dynamics eMonitor and the Galtronics Symhome product  actually monitor circuit-by-circuit in the home. Others, such as TED (The Energy Detective) monitor the main circuits and provide useful aggregated data. The circuit-by-circuit versions inevitably cost a little more, between $500 and $1000 installed. 

With the circuit-by-circuit versions, "it allows you to be really engaged with your consumption, to identify the energy hogs," said Mr. Steenberg of Powerhouse Systems.  Most EMS allows users to collect their real time data and store and analyze via the Internet with elaborate charted visualizations of nergy consumption. However, there are many simple systems as well. All of them can be installed within an hour by anyone handy or by an electrician.. 

Above: a typical screen from the Powerhouse Dynamics web-based software that helps homeowners understand usage in the house. Here the usage for the refrigerator is displayed.Using a Home Energy Monitor

A home energy monitoring system consists of an outlet energy monitor, which is plugged into the electrical outlet. Clamps are placed over the various circuits in the circuit breaker box. These types of energy monitors are simple and affordable, running from the TED starting at just over $200. 

Aside from this simple energy monitor, there is an circuit-by-circuit energy monitor, which is attached to the main incoming electricity supply wires in the panel. It monitors the power load on each wire and these readings are stored in the system. This helps the homeowner to see the electricity consumption by each of the appliance or device that is being used in the house. This type of circuit-by-circuit model is available from eMontior, ranging from $600-1000, depending on number of circuits in the home. There may be a small monitoring internet-based fee annually. Galtronics Symhome is somewhat less expensive and monitors even more circuits. 

Most home energy monitors come with computer interface through software and, in some cases, wireless connection. This helps the user in viewing the entire data on computer and gets more specific information using the special software that is integrated with the home energy monitoring system. The system can also be set to send warnings to emails and phones about unusual usage in real time. Most now have smart phone and tablet applications.

Above: A user survey of 200 installed users of Powerhouse Dynamics eMontior.Seeing is believing

Consistently, in all user surveys, home owners report a savings on their energy bill, ranging from 6-30%, and average 12%, according to eMonitor's 2010 user survey of 200 installed users. The IBM report cited above also refers to a similar range of savings. 

Melissa Lacas of TED reinforced this data: "In our analysis of 36 separate research studies and papers,the average savings to home owners is 12.6%, which at our price point is significant enough to offer a good return on investment.” 

The cost of energy is increasing day by day and people are now looking for ways to reduce their electricity bills. The simplest way to reduce your energy bills is by reducing your energy consumption. However, many people have no idea on where they should start from in this endeavour. Many studies have revealed that homeowners can successfully reduce their energy consumption by monitoring it on regular basis. This is where a good home energy monitoring system (HEMS) can help you.  
"Home energy monitoring is for everyone. This is a market we estimate at $5 billion by 2015," said Rich Hubert, VP of Smart and Communities at Cisco, a leader in this emerging technology. An IBM research survey "Understanding the smart energy consumer"—which surveyed 5000 respondents in 2008—indicated 21% of households will install home energy management in the next few years.