Tag Archives: energy

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graphSo, last week I wrote about reading data off of a Current Cost EnviR. As you might have predicted from my blog recently, sure as day follows night, I wrote a munin plugin for it.

This plugin, written in python, allows you to graph both the energy usage and temperature over time. This is handy, since this information gives you a much more detailed historic record than the limited and low resolution bar charts on the device itself, giving a much more detailed picture of your household’s power usage.

Usage details are in the project Readme, code is in the usual place.

» Visit the project on Github…

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Current-CostThe current cost meter is an electricity monitoring device which attaches to your house’s electricity meter. It gives you a read out of how much electricity you are using at any given time, and how much that electricity is costing you.

One of the cool things about the Current Cost meter, verses other meters which are out there, is that it includes a data cable. This cable attaches the meter to your computer, and you are able then to extract usage data, very simply, over a serial connection.

So, riffing off the weather display tool I wrote a few weeks ago, here is a quick tool for extracting electricity usage data from your Current Cost meter, and outputting it in a customisable format. The tool is tested on Linux against a Current Cost EnviR, but it may well work with other meters in the range.

Since the first step towards any form of optimisation is to collect data, my plan is to use this tool to graph my electricity usage over time, and hopefully reduce my running costs a bit. Anyway, code up on GitHub as usual!

» Visit the project on Github…