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Last year I put together a  list of 10 Power Monitoring Devices to put Your House on a Diet and Save Power to share with everyone the great options that were available for monitoring and reducing home (or business) power use.  At the time, I struggled to round the list out of ten, but now there is a whole new group of devices hitting the market.  If you have endless hours to research, then maybe you have discovered some of these.  If not, then maybe you’re like me and need to rely on great advice and tips from the energy conscious community.   Russ, one of our readers, has been researching power saving technology for a home he’s building in Turkey.  He was kind enough to pass along and let me share his list of whole house electricity monitoring devices as well as a few more plug meters.  His list goes a little something like this:

Black and Decker Power Meter -

A unit connects to your electric meter and by rf feeds you info on a display cost is 99.99 USD. On the same site they have a thermal leak detector for 49.99.  This appears to be nearly identical to the power cost monitor.   Another option is one from BlueLine that appears to be the same concept, but with a better design in my opinion.

Here are a few examples from Amazon .

Kondra -  Here’s a great little step-by-step on installing a branch monitoring system in a sub-panel.  The  system used is made based on the Veris board and Trendpoint software.  My thought is you don’t try this yourself without a solid knowledge of home electrical wiring, but it will give you an idea of what’s involved in the process.

Veris - The h663 seems easiest to use in a retrofit situation, but this install is not for the faint of heart.  Veris might be a good choice if you are focused on branch circuit monitoring and not plug meters.

Satec model bfm136 - “Each BFM monitors up to 12 three-phase circuits, 18 two-phase circuits, 36 single-phase circuits, or any combination thereof. This flexibility makes the BFM especially suitable for multi-tenant facilities such as residential and office buildings, shopping malls, hotels, hospitals, universities, supermarkets and data centers.

Ideal for both new and retrofit projects, the BFM’s compact size is designed to easily fit into existing panel boards, thus eliminating expensive retrofitting costs or allocating extra space for the instrument. The BFM provides the ideal solution for sub-metering applications and is designed to answer the monitoring and billing needs of multi-tenant facilities.”

Schneider - Maker of custom enclosures, branch monitoring retrofit kits, and a variety of other related devices.

RFX - rf units – nice but expensive – around 110 USD per circuit

Plugwise - switching units at about 40 USD per plug.  Allows ou to monitor and shutoff power to each device independently using a computer.  Looks like euro power only though.

Trend Point – similar to Veris but don’t sell to private customers overseas.  Focused on data center management.

Obvius - similar to Veris and is not your typical DIY project.  These monitoring devices start around a grand and go up.

Lem - rf units look good but I haven’t seen the cost.  Lem is focused on providing solutions for heavy industry, so this is another one that is not for the faint of heart.

Klein has installed a Trendpoint unit – Here’s another interesting project that is a self install powermeter.  Is it just me or are the insides of meter panels a little bit intimidating?

Plug Control –  rf connection to plugs – similar to Plugwise I guess – two versions, a simple and cheap while the business version allows you to capture data but is far more expensive.  Euro power only and is very similar to X-10 products.  If you like this concepts, go check out the x-10 line at smarthome.com.

Technorati Tags: black and decker, blueline, branch circuit monitoring, electric meter, electricity, Electricity monitoring software, home electrical wiring, leak detector, monitoring system, Plug Meter, Power Meter, power monitoring, three phase circuits, veris

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