Energy Display Meter

[stevenwba]

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

[enjay]

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...

[Hightower]

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.

[LeMarchand]

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!

[tech_guy]

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!

[Sylv3r]

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

[stevenwba]

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

 

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!

[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?

[sted]

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?

 

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

[enjay]

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.

[Ric_]

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?

 

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).

[enjay]

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).

 

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.

[ricki]

Science are trying to get us one at the moment.

 

Richard

[eean]

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?

[pete]

Has anyone had one of these meters installed recently?

 

We've been waiting since March with no communication unless I chase them, them not following up on promises to call back and me chasing them again at some point.

 

Anyone know if they're getting scrapped by Nick & Dave?

[AyatollahPies]

Informing teachers that Air-con does not work if all the classroom doors are wide open, would probably reduce it by quite a lot.

[enjay]

Anyone know if they're getting scrapped by Nick & Dave?

 

I'd be surprised if they do - green targets are one of the things Nick and Dave still like.

[john]

Informing teachers that Air-con does not work if all the classroom doors are wide open, would probably reduce it by quite a lot.

 

I have that issue as well! They say its hot well shut the blinking windows that you have managed to get open by climbing up on the furniture to make a nice sealed box for the AC to cool!

[Sylv3r]

We haven;t heard anything about our installation date since we got our application approved. The data point is to be installed the first week of the summer holidays - if I don't hear anything I'll not bother getting it installed and it will save some pennies!

[Guest theeldergeek]

Informing teachers that Air-con does not work if all the classroom doors are wide open, would probably reduce it by quite a lot.

 

I went in a suite today to find that ALL the windows were wide open and the teacher had turned the air con down to 18 degrees!

[AyatollahPies]

I went in a suite today to find that ALL the windows were wide open and the teacher had turned the air con down to 18 degrees!

 

I think a lot of folk in general just don't know how it works. A collegue of mine was driving us up the motorway last week at 70mph, windows down and air con on full. I didn't want to rock the boat.

[skinner]

I really like this idea, it's unfortunate that it's become such a problem to get a hold of them.

[kahill]

thank you

[pete]

*resurrects thread*

 

Has anyone managed to work out how to scrape / log the voltage/amperage over time? While the screen displays it in semi-real time, it only logs kWh which is suboptimal. I've called British Gas and they've been nice but bemused and don't appear to have access to any api's / further info.

[LeMarchand]

As it's been resurrected, has anyone managed to install this centrally and got it to work? (Can't be bothered to go round to each machine). Or got an MSI?

 

If I install to netprogs it hangs looking for the device.