Normal electricity meters don't make it easy. They're usually hidden away under the stairs or somewhere equally out of sight. The only time you find out how much energy you've been using is when that big bill drops on your doormat. It makes it hard to relate our daily use with the actual cost of the bill (let alone the environmental costs of that energy).

Luckily, this all looks set to change. Several companies have recently come up with wireless 'smart meters' that cleverly clip on to your existing meter and give you live feedback on the electricity (and sometime gas) you are using. A simple sensor clips over one of the main wires coming out of your meter box, and transmits signal to a readout unit, which shows you how much you are using right now in pence per hour, tonnes of CO2 or kWh. They're great ways of raising your family's awareness about the electricity that is actually used when you flip on the kettle for a cuppa...

If you're interested in getting one, there are currently three main contenders vying for your attention- Electrisave (now re-incarnated as the Owl...more details to follow), the Wattson, and the Efergy meter. The Current Cost meter shown below is not available for purchase at this time but may be in the future via utility companies. Click the pictures to read our reviews.

Electrisave

Efergy

DIY Kyoto's Wattson

Currrent Cost

Owl

 

other options

Meanwhile, over at MoreAssociates, they've developed a very high tech system which monitors everything in your house separately, so you can see on a screen what the oven is using compared to the TV.

However it's still really in the concept stage and ends up being quite expensive. Hopefully this will change in time as well, as it's a brilliant system.

design concepts

A german product designer called Klaus Küppers came up with this innovative design for an energy, gas and water monitor back in 2005. We think something like this may be the holy grail of energy monitoring, but it would probably  be a pretty expensive (if rather stylish) piece of kit.

Finally, the big boys in the energy industry are also waking up to all this. In April 2006 EDF Energy launched a trial of a smart metering system in 3,000 of their customer's homes over two years. This is in conjunction with the National Energy Agency. If you've got one of their meters in your home, let us know, we'd love to hear about it!

free meters in the future?

According to this BBC article the government have announced that energy meters such as the ones described above might soon be available for free via a government scheme. We're not holding our breath, but we'll publish details here when we hear more.

plug in meters

If you are looking for ways to individually measure how much each of your appliances uses, what you need is a plug-in meter. Check out our article here for more information.

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