Submetering Solutions for the Smart Home and the Smart Grid

The global electric power infrastructure is undergoing a dramatic change from a load-following architecture to one that requires improved control and monitoring of the energy usage. Integration of inherently intermittent renewable resources requires improved ability to offset demand in order to leverage this intermittency. Demand Response (DR) initiative as well as other load shedding efforts are being implemented throughout the country to allow some control of the aggregate electric loads to reduce peak demand. Enhanced monitoring of the transmission and distribution grid, as well as the electricity consumption at load level, is desired to allow further control and deferral of non-essential loads during a DR event as well as to facilitate energy conservation.
In my talk, two distinct, but related projects will be presented. The first project is about a stick-on wireless submetering system that is designed to measure and report electricity usage from circuit breaker panels in residential and commercial settings. The second project is related to the development of an energy harvesting enabled, wireless sensor node for the condition monitoring of the Smart Grid.