We Need to Talk… Developing Communicating Power Supplies to Monitor & Control Miscellaneous Electric Loads

Plug loads represent 30% of total electricity use in residential buildings. Significant energy savings would result from an accurate understanding of which miscellaneous electric devices are using energy, at what time, and in what quantity. Commercially available plug load monitoring and control solutions replace or limit the attached device's native controls - forcing the user to adapt to a separate set of controls associated with the monitoring and control hardware. A better solution is integration of these capabilities at the power supply level. In this paper, we demonstrate a method achieving this integration. Our solution allows unobtrusive power monitoring and control while retaining native device control features. Further, our prototype enables intelligent behaviors by allowing devices to respond to the state of one another automatically. The CPS enables energy savings while demonstrating an added level of functionality to the user. If CPS technology became widespread in devices, a combination of automated and human interactive solutions would enable high levels of energy savings in buildings.