Electrical energy audit system

Abstract

Currently, commercial business electricity consumers manage and control their electricity usage without the use of energy audits. Therefore, they do not completely understand the financial weight of their loads on their electrical bill or in which ways they use energy wastefully. The use of old - inefficient technologies also presents more issues. Consequently, it’s difficult for them to make informed decisions regarding the efficient use of electricity which leads to energy wastage and loss of money by consumers. The purpose of this project is to create a tool to provide sufficient and comprehensible energy usage information through energy audits thereby promoting energy efficiency by consumers. This was realized by building a prototype of an Electrical Energy Audit System capable of acquiring voltage and current data of connected loads, displaying the energy consumption data of connected loads, automatically controlling loads based on energy consumption data and providing tailored recommendations and/ or energy efficient alternatives. The key results obtained included measurement of voltage and current from a socket outlet, transferring this data via Wi-Fi to a central point where energy consumption graphs and average cost of energy is displayed along with recommendations on how to reduce your energy consumption.