2008 I 2009 Sustainability Report - Econsense

Of power pioneers and energy detectives
24
The aroma of coffee wafts through the
house, to the accompaniment of a hissing
espresso machine in the kitchen and the
hum of a hairdryer in the bathroom. The
Schacht family, living nearby Stuttgart,
start the new day just like other families.
But unlike many other households, the
Schachts always know exactly how much
electricity they're using at any point in
time. All they have to do is pop into the
study and take a glance at the PC monitor,
on which a curve rises and falls, showing the
power being used by all the electrical appliances
that are currently switched on or in
standby mode. This is made possible by the
"intelligent EnBW electricity meter", a unit
that is easily and quickly installed in the cellar
of a house in place of the conventional
black dial-type meter. It is about the size of
a shoe box and supplies updated consumption
data to the PC two floors up by the second.
A special software program then creates
the corresponding diagram in real
time. Moreover, a built-in transmission
module sends a mean power consumption
value to an EnBW server via DSL every fifteen
minutes. All the stored long-term data
can be processed, retrieved and analysed in
easy-to-read graphic form at any time via
the secure "EnBW Cockpit" Internet portal.
This renders the electricity consumption
habits of the family totally transparent.
"It's really surprising to see how the curve
changes every time a single household appliance
is switched on or off", says Attikus
Schacht, who works as a business consultant.
This enabled the family to pinpoint a
lot of energy guzzlers, appliances that appear
to be switched off in standby mode but
still use a lot of valuable energy. The entire
family inspected every room in their new
home "from the cellar to the roof", as Julia
Schacht says, and disconnected the electrical
appliances that were not in use. This was
also a kind of energy-saving detective game
for the children, who found the whole
process quite exciting.