alright, so I spent a few weeks researching a previous idea I had which was a solar powered 3D Printer....I'd like to say that I am NOT dropping the idea, it is definitely on my to do list, but since the main project I will be working on for the duration of next year will be academic, and be a nice addition to my resume I thought it best to do something that would demonstrate to an employer that I'm really thinking about this oh so important thing known as "efficiency" and "effectiveness"

THUS, I have now begun to understand the inner workings of smart grids....books, articles, magazines etc etc....but clearly these are projects usually designed for an industrial or city-wide scale.

Also...living in Canada myself and having to do the majority of the work for this project indoors during the colder winter months means that working on a solar project will likely be hindered by the lack of sunlight during the winter.

Any ideas on how I could put together a smaller prototype of a smart grid system? Just brainstorming here but here are a few things I was thinking

Grid in a BOX

Marketability is key right? So why not design some kind of "smart box" system that residential home owners can use in their homes to maximize/minimize their energy usage. A mish mash of sensors of various types that relay information to an android based application that tracks various measurements across a variety of different energy consuming systems (lighting, internet use, temperature etc etc).

Yes I can imagine this will be quite difficult....so that's why I come back to all of you lovely people to hopefully steer me clear of disaster

 

But...all of this sensing would have to result in some sort of action in order to make it useful. What would this box do with the information.

 

I'm thinking that this app would perhaps draw from some pre-programmed or inputted data that tells the user when the peak times for energy consumption are so that they can avoid excessive costs, as well as provide them with some graphs displaying their electricity usage throughout a certain period of time (e.g. last week, yesterday, last month etc)

 

Maybe this will give you some useful ideas:

http://www.stahlke.org/dan/powermeter/