Integrated centralized electric current monitoring system using wirelessly enabled non-intrusive AC current sensors

We describe an electric current monitoring system that can be used to non-intrusively measure individual loads on a circuit breaker panel in residential and commercial settings. The proximity-based piezoelectromagnetic (PEM) sensor uses permanent magnets to couple to the electric current in the circuit to be measured, and hence requires no galvanic connection to the circuits. This paper describes the theory for sensing current in a circuit breaker panel using PEM sensors, as well as the implementation of an integrated sensing system that stores the measured results in an on-line repository, which can be queried remotely using the world-wide web. We show the experimental results from implementing our sensors to measure loads on a circuit breaker panel in a campus building at UC Berkeley.