Landis+Gyr has announced the commercial availability of its next-generation ecoMeter energy monitor for the North American market. The ecoMeter P250 is a pocket-sized display that connects wirelessly to the consumer's electric meter to continuously report energy use and cost.
Designed for convenient placement anywhere in the home, the ecoMeter uses short-range radio signals to communicate with qualified advanced meters using the ZigBee Smart Energy Profile. In addition to current energy consumption, the monitor stores and reports historical energy use, cost of power -- including up to four time-of-use cost tiers -- and uses color coded alerts when energy use goes above average (or normal) consumption.
"In-home energy monitors, like our ecoMeter products, allow utilities to engage consumers and give them an active role in energy management and demand response," said Shelley Moister, product manager at Landis+Gyr. "The P250, using the Smart Energy Profile to communicate with the smart meter, provides standards-based compatibility with Gridstream advanced metering solutions."
The P250 is compatible with smart energy profile 1.0 compliant meters and will initially be available to utilities using Landis+Gyr's advanced E330 (FOCUS AX) and E350 (FOCUS AX SD) meters that are ZigBee-enabled. The communication link between the meter and ecoMeter is established using a unique and secure access code for each display, providing the privacy protection that is important to both the utility and their customers.
In trials conducted at utilities in Australia as well as in similar studies in California and other parts of the United States, consumers with ready access to information about energy usage were far more likely to use energy more efficiently. In some cases, peak pricing and time-of-use rates have shown the ability to reduce load as much as direct load control programs. In addition to the ecoMeter P250, Landis+Gyr continues to work with manufacturers of home area network devices to establish the broadest compatibility and product choice for its personal energy management solutions.
