Development funding
Essex University scientists John Woods and Steve Fitz have been awarded £90,000 by Carbon Connections to create an intelligent plug that can monitor electricity use. TTe device, which will be indistinguishable from current plugs, will monitor the power use of individual appliances and will be able to be connected to a central control system within the home.
Inside each plug will be a power meter, a microcontroller and a wireless transceiver which will relay information back to the central point.
Woods said, “People will be able to see how much power every single device uses. You will be able to see if a machine, such as a fridge, has failed, or if something has been left on, that should not have been. It empowers the individual homeowner to make a real carbon difference.”
The prototype plugs will be made by Ipswich company Circad, and should be ready within six months. They will then tested in the university’s test apartment, iSpace, where high-tech devices can be trialled in a domestic setting.
Carbon Connections is a development fund managed by the University of East Anglia and funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, and set up to support organisations with innovative projects for carbon reduction.
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