Samoa Hostel Wattimus Prime

Objective

To design a metering scheme that will monitor and display the impact of the electricity usage to visitors staying at the Samoa Hostel.

Background

The Samoa Hostel intends to educate visitors about topics related to ecology and conservationism. Part of this is an effort to allow visitors to monitor how much energy they are using, including electricity consumed by appliances that are plugged in but not in use. Studies have shown that self-monitoring of energy usage cuts consumption by a significant degree. Our solution's purpose is to find a meter for each of the twenty-four rooms of the hostel. Most meters being intended for monitoring either a single socket or an entire building has presented a unique challenge for our solution.

Constraints

Each room has one meter.
The meter is at eye-level (five feet).
The meter has an easy to read LCD screen.
The meter is easy to operate.
The meter can measure up to 220V accurately.
The meters will not interfere with each other.

Criteria in Order of Significance

Safety meets National Electric Code
Education encourage conservation
Durability withstand everyday use
Cost less than $250.00
Aesthetics looks professional

Solution

The metering scheme will use the EM-2500 meter. Each bedroom will contain one EM-2500 meter, set at a height of five feet and two feet from the light switch, The meter will connect to the insulated hot wires leading to the lightbulb and to the electric outlet. Using current transformer connectors that wrap around main insulated electrical lines is more safe and effective than conventional splicing, or invasive systems. It will display energy used in Kilowatthours (KWh).

Fig 1: The attachment of wires for wall mounting the EM-2500. Picture by Energy Monitoring Technologies.^[1]
Fig 2: Basic setup of a hostel room showing the EM-2500 Meter Reader at five feet high with a conversion chart next to it. Picture courtesy of David Scully.