Energy Display Meter

Hi,

We're just about to have an energy display meter installed in school, networked, so readings can be shown on a machine at all times, quite useful i thought,

Anyone else got one?

if interested read more here Free Energy Display Meter for schools

I like the idea of "see the effects of turning things on and off", but in something the size of even a small school, would it really show? We're pulling a good few kilowatts at any point in time, so the small spike caused by a light bulb would probably be difficult to spot...

Was going to get one but seeing as the meter was in a location without data points and the location was so far away from a data cab that installing one ment a fiber run, we cant take advantage of it. :(

The bursar was probing me about this the other day. Never seen a "free" energy meter that would cost the school £1300. Would need a couple of new network points installing for it, along with a dedicated machine and wall mounted display. Not quite "free" after all.

Filling in the incredibly long application form this morning, but as there's no network point near the meter I'm not holding out much hope for a freebie!

We've got them and they were panicking at how much energy we using in some of the rooms - what do they expect when there's 30-odd PCs chugging away along with everything else that's in there!

Application form all filled in - just need to get a network point installed and we are good to go.

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Originally Posted by Sylv3r

Application form all filled in - just need to get a network point installed and we are good to go.

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We're at the same point now, our mains board is located right under our switch cab so hopefully we'll do the cabling ourselfs, so will truely be a "free" energy meter :)

will be interesting to see how much juice were using here, only a small school but still will be amazed at how much we waste, i mean use!

Hang on - if this thing sits on the main electricity feed into the school, what information does it give you which isn't already on your utility bill? It doesn't go anywhere towards identifying the places in which you're wasting electricity, or the particularly "hungry" appliances. Or am I missing something here?

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Originally Posted by enjay

Hang on - if this thing sits on the main electricity feed into the school, what information does it give you which isn't already on your utility bill? It doesn't go anywhere towards identifying the places in which you're wasting electricity, or the particularly "hungry" appliances. Or am I missing something here?

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i assume you will have to go round and isolate bits to find out what drinks what exactly

So it doesn't offer much more than a plug-in meter like Plug-In Power, Energy & CO₂ Meter : All Products : Maplin and a bit of maths...

Don't get me wrong - I'm very much in favour of people calculating and reducing electricity consumption, I'm just not sure this is the way to do it.

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Originally Posted by enjay

Hang on - if this thing sits on the main electricity feed into the school, what information does it give you which isn't already on your utility bill? It doesn't go anywhere towards identifying the places in which you're wasting electricity, or the particularly "hungry" appliances. Or am I missing something here?

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The idea is that yu can see how energy usage varies over the course of a day and by doing that, the school will become more aware of energy usage. You won't be able to track particular items that are using too much power but you will be able to see trends... e.g. at 8am all the lights and computers get turned on and there's a big spike but there's no big drop at 4pm when everyone goes home (so maybe the computers and lights aren't getting switched off properly).

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Originally Posted by Ric_

e.g. at 8am all the lights and computers get turned on and there's a big spike but there's no big drop at 4pm when everyone goes home (so maybe the computers and lights aren't getting switched off properly).

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Okay, I get it now.

I still think it isn't a complete solution, but should go hand-in-hand with individual devices and training people to turn lights off off when not in use, and so on. Personally, I think that a plug-in meter on an individual device to show how much that is using might be more effective - there (probably) isn't a single change anyone could make which would have a dramatic impact on consumption, instead everyone could make small changes which would add up - lights off, power settings on PCs, not filling kettles, etc. The only people who can make large changes are IT Support with power management and site management with low-energy light bulbs, but everyone's small changes can collectively make an enormous difference.

Science are trying to get us one at the moment.

Richard

We had a going green week and we recorded the our day time energy usage, just by looking at the meter. We displayed that on the digital displays around the school. We set a target of reducing energy consumption by 10%, but actually managed 30%. All by making people aware of switching off their lights and aircon (we're in Malaysia, it gets pretty hot!).

So I think this kind of thing can have an impact if you actually hype it up to the children. 6 months on, however, I would recon that our energy usage has creeped up... but I do try to switch off my lights now so it might have changed some habits.

As we're abroad, we're not eligible for the offer - does anyone know what the unit actually is, where we can get one and how much they are?