Smart Energy Management Using Integrated Control Systems

Created by Christian Crisostomo on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 ? Leave a Comment?

Energy management is an issue that we almost always address manually. A simple decision to buy a more energy efficient air conditioner, the diligence to check for turned on but unused appliances, and a plan to consume less overall power are some of the things that are typically included in an energy management plan.

While the resolve to come up with an energy consumption strategy is quite commendable, our current methods do make it look a bit too tedious. Wouldn?t it be wonderful if we can hire an assistant whose sole purpose is to manage all of these things?

That is what a smart energy management system could provide for your home, and the manager would be an integrated control system.

How Control Systems Could Turn an Energy System ?Smart?

Remember how we have demonstrated with green computers that the more watts you can save, the more a device could be considered as environment-friendly? The concept is more or less the same for a smart energy management system, although this time, we don?t simply pull the consumption rate as low as we can. Instead we get the assistance of a computer (or another control system) to calculate all the variables needed to make the most out of the energy that we have saved.

For example, a software program could control the flow of energy around your home according to the energy consumption needs of your electrical devices and appliances at a given point in time. Another example could be a simple integrated charge controller that would be used to automatically switch between multiple energy sources as necessary.

Other Possible Types of Smart Energy Management Systems

Though the term ?energy management? is mostly used for household energy consumption, smart energy management systems could actually be scaled up or down depending on where it is applied. A few other examples of smart energy management systems are:

• Smart Grid ? this is a grid power system that has an added function of being able to gather behavioral data on all of the bulk loads connected to it. The smart energy management system of this type of grid is capable of improving the reliability, efficiency and sustainability of the distributed energy using the information gathered.
• Smart Energy Devices ? Small devices could also be installed with an automated energy management system. For example, Western Digital?s Caviar Green magnetic hard drives uses a smart energy management system that allows it control the flow of current depending on whether the computer is active or idle.

The actual positive environmental impact of a smart energy management system may not look that impressive (especially if your home ends up using dirty coal-based grid power anyway). But in the long run these systems could help us learn and accept the importance of economizing all the available energy sources around us. Remember, improving green energy efficiency does not only mean increasing the overall energy output, but it could also simply mean an increase in ?meaningful? energy consumption.

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by digitpedia via Flickr

Christian Crisostomo is a researcher and an observer of humanity's technological progress. He is also a green technology enthusiast and an advocate of environment-friendly alternative energy.

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Source: http://www.theenvironmentalblog.org/2012/02/smart-energy-management-integrated-control-systems/

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