GESE: Granular Electric Sub-Metering Economics in the Context of Automated Demand Response

James Coleman, Forrest Meggers

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Granular electric sub-metering is a key component of progressive building operations. It enables use cases including: electricity and carbon accounting, tenant or departmental billing, measurement and verification for energy conservation measures, and fault detection and diagnostics. It also enables emerging practices like predictive maintenance, occupancy detection, and Automated Demand Response (ADR). This paper compares 3 design patterns that elevate a sub-metering system to an ADR capable system to determine if networked smart plugs and breakers facilitate ADR at a lower cost than traditional building automation system (BAS) equipment. We consider the requirements of our ADR systems to be: knowing real-time energy consumption and being able to programmatically switch loads or branch circuits. We also experimentally validate the accuracy of lower-cost metering solutions. We find that smart plugs are not meaningfully less accurate than traditional power meters. We find that while smart breakers are less accurate than smart plugs, they are accurate enough to be used for informational purposes. We find that the infrastructure required to deploy an ADR solution on top of either a smart breaker or smart plug based metering system has fewer components is likely less expensive than an ADR system based on a BAS architecture. In conclusion, we find that IoT-style smart plugs and breakers offer a viable and relatively low cost alternative to traditional BASs for the purpose of ADR. However, because of the limitations of switching loads entirely off, the useful application of this approach may be limited to residential settings.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2024 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Living Environment, MetroLivEnv 2024 - Proceedings
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages45-50
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9798350385014
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024
Event2024 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Living Environment, MetroLivEnv 2024 - Chania, Greece
Duration: Jun 12 2024Jun 14 2024

Publication series

Name2024 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Living Environment, MetroLivEnv 2024 - Proceedings

Conference

Conference2024 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Living Environment, MetroLivEnv 2024
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityChania
Period6/12/246/14/24

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computers in Earth Sciences
  • Civil and Structural Engineering
  • Instrumentation
  • Health(social science)

Keywords

  • branch circuit monitoring
  • Building Automation System (BAS)
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • power meters
  • sub-metering

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