In a downtown Toronto industrial loft, engineer Michael Glenn is demonstrating what looks like the ultimate light switch: He taps a key on his laptop computer, and a lamp on the other side of the building obediently clicks on, then off again. It doesn’t seem like that big a deal until he explains that he could control that same lamp from the other side of the world.
Even if Mr. Glenn were on another continent, he could not only control the lamp over the Internet, but also check how much power it was consuming. While he was at it, Mr. Glenn could also see whether his refrigerator was working properly, turn off the lights in his office or compare his home’s power consumption to the houses around it.
Behind this wizardry is a Canadian-made device called the TalkingPlug that promises to revolutionize the way we use electrical power by connecting appliances to a wireless network that lets you track and control them from anywhere.
“It will completely transform our world when plugs talk to each other and interact with each other,” says Ron Dembo, CEO of Zerofootprint, one of the companies behind the TalkingPlug. Mr. Glenn is the firm’s vice-president of products.
The key to the TalkingPlug system is an Internet-enabled receptacle that transmits data about devices that are plugged into it. Every appliance in a household (or an office) can be connected to a TalkingPlug, which identifies the appliance through a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag. On your computer screen (or smartphone) you can monitor the power consumption of your desk lamp, your toaster or your whole house.
The associated software program, named ZeroMeter, features a screen that looks like the gas gauge of a car, with a needle sweeping through a green and orange arc, showing the exact amount and cost of power running through the TalkingPlug.
The TalkingPlug is expected to reach the market in about a year. At the moment, the cost of each outlet is more than $50, but that price is expected to come down.
Energy experts believe smart power systems like this are an important step forward in the reduction of carbon emissions. Jack Gibbons, chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, says huge amounts of power are wasted because consumers don’t realize how much their appliances consume. “Once you find out what you’re actually using, you can start making changes,” he says.
At the moment, all we have to go on are electricity meter readings, which show how many kilowatts an institution (or household) consumes overall. But because it monitors the consumption of individual devices, the TalkingPlug will enable more accurate analysis.
“That’s a critical element,” says Marion Fraser, president of Fraser & Company energy consulting. “The ability to drill down and see exactly what you’re using and how you’re using it is very significant.” Ms. Fraser says even professional building managers find it difficult to determine how much power is actually consumed – and when they start looking into it, there can be some major surprises. When Toronto schools were audited for energy use, for example, they learned that schools of nearly identical size and construction varied by as much as 350 per cent in their power usage.
Ms. Fraser also cites the case of a Home Hardware storeowner who was confounded by consistently high power bills. Since he had no way of measuring each device, the storeowner began turning off circuits one at a time and watching what the meter did. After turning off every circuit, the meter was still showing power consumption. After investigation, the storeowner discovered that heating elements installed in the roof to melt ice had been wired to stay on year-round.
This revelation led him to check out his house, where he learned that many of his appliances were consuming power even when they were off (a phenomenon known as “vampire” loss.) The worst culprit was a giant subwoofer for his home entertainment system that was using more than a kilowatt of power every month (approximately $75 at current prices.) Ms. Fraser says a device like the TalkingPlug could instantly reveal this kind of waste.
