RE: [OT] Electricity Bill

["Iain Goodhew" <I.C.B.Goodhew@xxxxxxx>]

One little project I keep meaning to get off the ground is an
electricity meter monitor. I have a modern LCD meter, which has a
flashing LED to indicate consumption ( 1000 flashes per KWh). With a
simple phototransistor and a pic, this could be made available to a pc
for logging. It would provide useful info of static base load, but also
help identify large energy usage within the home and allow optimization
of X10 stuff.

Even if you have an old style meter, a reflective opto pointing at the
rotating disc provides the same info - I've seen this done. Since you
are only pointing a sensor at the meter it's perfectly legal and
accurate method of monitoring total electricity consumed. It would be
useful to know individual circuits, but that gets a bit more tricky, as
you would have to monitor currents out of the circuit breakers.

Anyone any comments?

Iain