Home smart grid device for energy saves and failure monitoring

The growing sensibility on energy consumption has focused people interest in energy optimization technologies. Non-intrusive load monitoring system (NILMS) are a cheap solution that require minimal equipment and installation time. The aim of the research is to develop a load analyzing platform for electrical devices to obtain information on their functionality and to display the costumer advantage to change their energy class. It monitors malfunctions or non-critical failures in real-time. It also counts the device operative life-time. The architecture is made of a local analysis electrical plug, which get the load information, and a central unit which elaborates data. The hardware implements a hall-effect ammeter, a power transformer and a micro controller (AT-mega328). The central unit is a small integrated computer (Raspberry). The communication between the devices utilize a low-range radio transmitter.