ETH Zurich : Computer Science : Pervasive Computing : Distributed Systems : Education : Student Projects : Abstract

PowerPedia 2.0 - A Collaborative Web Application for Electrical Appliances (M)

Status: Abgeschlossen

Conserving energy is a topic that has gained considerable attention over the last couple of years. Residential electricity consumption accounts for a considerable portion of the total electrical energy produced and is somewhat dependent on the behavior of residents. Only few people have an understanding of where energy is consumed and wasted. Providing feedback on the electricity consumption of single appliances is one means towards the improvement of this situation. Unfortunately, most existing feedback approaches present this feedback in a rather technical manner and are hence not suited for most users.

To provide feedback beyond mere numbers, a previous master thesis introduced PowerPedia, a collaborative energy encyclopedia. This application allows to compare the energy consumption of single appliances to similar appliances, giving users an assessment on the efficiency of a device. PowerPedia is part of the eMeter system, a feedback system that allows to monitor the total energy consumption of a household and to measure the consumption of individual devices.

In order to change the behavior of people, presenting efficiency rankings still does not go far enough yet. Action-guided feedback is needed. This work takes the idea of PowerPedia further and introduces new concepts to put consumption values in a larger context and to assist users revising their electricity consumption.

The contributions of this thesis are threefold. First, we reimplement and extend PowerPedia as a collaborative web platform that can be used independently of the eMeter system. On this platform users can collaboratively build a knowledge base for the electricity consumption of appliances. Second, we design a central repository for appliance signatures, where appliance signatures can be stored and accessed via an application programming interface. This allows us to extend and broaden the measuring process of individual appliances to get a more accurate picture of their energy consumption. Last, we extend one part of the eMeter system, the eMeter iPhone application, to work with the new implementation of PowerPedia. We integrate its functionality to also provide a mobile user interface to PowerPedia.

Student/Bearbeitet von: Joana Welti
Contact/Ansprechpartner: Markus Weiss, Christian Beckel