illuminating my family's environmental footprint

Illuminating my Family's Environmental Footprint @ OSDC Hobart © 2015 Arjen Lentz CC-BY-SA

Illuminating my Family's Environmental Footprint

By Arjen LentzOpen Source Developers' Conference

October 2015, Hobart TAS

2Illuminating my Family's Environmental Footprint @ OSDC Hobart © 2015 Arjen Lentz CC-BY-SA

Our Objectives

● Provide feedback on resource use to family– Live data

– Hot water & Electricity

– Gain insight → learn

– Influences & modifies behaviour over time!

● Cheap and non-intrusive● Local, not central control

– Lack of hot water is not cool


Displayon any phone, tablet or computer


Home Network Cabinet


Hot Water Monitoring/Control

Hot waterflow meter


GigEthernet in Garage – Because.Power-over-Ethernet


Arduino solar hot water controlFreetronics Arduino gear

ArduinoEtherTen

802.3afPoE board

RTCmodule

Relay drivermodule


Booster Relay Ruleset

if (((h >= 14 && h < 20) && temp < 42) ||

((h >= 4 || h < 7) && temp < 40))

{turn on booster relay}

if (temp > 46)

{turn off booster relay}


UDP → CSV (SHW_FLOW tag)

SHW_FLOW,"2014-03-08","12:07:28",6.32,105

SHW_FLOW,"2014-03-08","12:07:29",6.32,105

SHW_FLOW,"2014-03-08","12:07:30",6.14,102

SHW_FLOW,"2014-03-08","12:07:31",6.14,102

SHW_FLOW,"2014-03-08","12:07:32",5.96,99

SHW_FLOW,"2014-03-08","12:07:33",5.96,99

SHW_FLOW,"2014-03-08","12:07:34",5.79,96

SHW_FLOW,"2014-03-08","12:07:35",5.96,99

L/min(Calc)

# flow impulses(since last line)


UDP → CSV (SHW_TEMP tag)

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:19:53",64.12,49.50

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:19:54",64.12,49.56

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:19:57",64.18,49.56

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:20:03",64.18,49.62

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:20:04",64.18,49.56

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:20:05",64.18,49.62

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:20:11",64.25,49.62

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:20:17",64.25,49.68

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:20:22",64.31,49.68

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:20:27",64.31,49.75

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:20:38",64.37,49.75

SHW_TEMP,"2014-03-07","15:20:42",64.37,49.81

Collector sensor temp

Vat sensor temp


Raspberry Pi + RFM12B transceiver


StandardFusebox


OpenEnergyMonitor.org


Import/ExportAre we Winning, Overall?

ImportedTotal kWh

ExportedTotal kWh

It's spring. We run ahead over summer.


Our PV Data @ pvoutput.org


pvoutput.org neat live graphs!


Lessons & Future

● Behaviour influenced.– Horays!

● Split hot water system would have been better– Rather than rooftop

– We think night time exposure leads to more loss● Approx 1 degree per hour in 320L storage vat

– Better yet: heatpump hot water system● Use excess PV during day● More space for extra PV panels

● We're not quite yet ready to go off-grid.


Thank You - Questions?

Arjen Lentz

[email protected]