killswtch's Home Automation and Media Projects
This is the story of my attempts at integrating various technologies into a 3-bed semi, constructing as much of the hardware and electronics as possible myself.
Friday 7 December 2007, 9:28 PM
Conserving energy in an automated home - Part 3
Thus far I’ve got the hard-drive standby mode sorted on the main fileserver in the house (boron) and now I’m starting to look at the other ways of reducing power. This will help reduce our electricity bills and of course reduce the burden on the national grid. The system drive for boron may be replaced with an SSD, since space isn’t really an issue for a server. The touchscreen controllers around the house will probably be based upon embedded devices, or at the very least low-power machines.
Once we have got all the rooms decorated and decided on light fittings, I will be able to retro-fit some power control technology (most likely X10 because of it’s cheapness, abundance and suitability for retro-fitting) and light sensors. Lights with energy saving bulbs can’t (generally) be dimmed, so these lights will have to use appliance switches. Incandescent lights, while rare in the house, can be dimmed so dimmer switches can be installed.
I’m also going to attempt to modify a commercially available current meter to connect to a network, then both record the results and use the live data to predict and reduce consumption within the house.
When the whole-house audio system is not in use, it will be switched off using the APC MasterSwitch remote power switch that is in my rack cabinet.
One of the ultimate dreams is to have a micro-generation facility. There are only really 2 choices for this - solar or wind (the local river isn’t large enough or close enough for hydro-electric). We have a very long (~100m) garden which would be suitable for a wind turbine, but I’m not sure about whether the wind is constant enough around here. Solar is more expensive per watt, and the panels would have to be mounted only on the rear of the house, if planning permission is granted at all. Our roof is fairly well exposed, so being able to bathe in the sun shouldn’t be a problem.
Once we have got all the rooms decorated and decided on light fittings, I will be able to retro-fit some power control technology (most likely X10 because of it’s cheapness, abundance and suitability for retro-fitting) and light sensors. Lights with energy saving bulbs can’t (generally) be dimmed, so these lights will have to use appliance switches. Incandescent lights, while rare in the house, can be dimmed so dimmer switches can be installed.
I’m also going to attempt to modify a commercially available current meter to connect to a network, then both record the results and use the live data to predict and reduce consumption within the house.
When the whole-house audio system is not in use, it will be switched off using the APC MasterSwitch remote power switch that is in my rack cabinet.
One of the ultimate dreams is to have a micro-generation facility. There are only really 2 choices for this - solar or wind (the local river isn’t large enough or close enough for hydro-electric). We have a very long (~100m) garden which would be suitable for a wind turbine, but I’m not sure about whether the wind is constant enough around here. Solar is more expensive per watt, and the panels would have to be mounted only on the rear of the house, if planning permission is granted at all. Our roof is fairly well exposed, so being able to bathe in the sun shouldn’t be a problem.
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