SenseDat Meter™ consists of four components, which may be assembled in different ways to match your needs and resources.

SenseDat Analyzer™, our information display software, is the heart of SenseDat Meter™. Analyzer is Windows® based software that helps you reduce costs, in dollars and emissions. With Analyzer using 15-minute energy data, you can:

• See patterns in energy use, including periods of peak demand;
• Understand energy costs, including greenhouse gas emission costs;
• Relate events and experiments to changes in the patterns of energy use.

Analyzer creates reports in Microsoft Excel® for additional analysis, too. For example, you can add National Weather Service daily weather data to the daily energy summary table in an Excel report and then explore relationships between energy use and temperature, day by day.

Analyzer can interpret energy data from any source so long as the data comply with a simple text file format. For example, Analyzer can work with historical data produced by a range of data-loggers and building management systems.

While review and analysis of historical data has its place, we want to promote rapid cycles of monitoring and learning about energy use. To get these rapid cycles, energy information must flow from the building to a PC or computer network so you can see energy use right now.

We know many customers have access to standard pulse information from their utility. So we designed and developed inexpensive SenseDat Converter™ hardware and software. Converter turns a pulse signal to the text format that the Analyzer software uses. Converter hardware is simple and now allows you to monitor several sources simultaneously. Each Converter hardware unit can handle two sources of pulses.  Combine more than one unit to monitor more sources. 

Our hardware is complemented by Converter software that uses the processing power of a PC to accumulate data and write appropriate files. A surplus Windows® PC equipped with Converter can function as a data-logger and a data pipeline; our hardware design reduces component costs and re-uses older PCs. Converter has monitored natural gas and water as well as electric energy use.

Finally, we have put together the SenseDat Electric Energy Kit, which combines Analyzer and Converter components with third-party “smart” current transducers. These smart current transducers provide pulses to the Converter.

The Electric Energy Kit bypasses the need to obtain pulses from the electric utility. The Kit also allows the customer to move the current transducers from one electric service to another; typically a pulse source provided by the utility is tied to a particular meter. The Kit, along with a 2000-era or later Windows® laptop provides a portable system for commissioning and troubleshooting use of electrical energy.

Learn More

1. Download a free 30-day trial version of SenseDat Analyzer™ for Windows® XP, and ME, 2000.

2. See sample SenseDat™ screen shots of electric energy use at a science instructional building:

• One-day record of 15-minute energy data. Students studied energy use of one lab.
• 30-day record of 15-minute energy data, in kWh.
• 30-day record of hourly average $ costs, using time-of-use rates.

3. See sample SenseDat Meter™ report (.pdf format, 15KB)

4. Learn about hardware to connect a building to SenseDat Meter™ (.pdf format, 154KB)

5. Learn about installing SenseDat Analyzer™ software (.pdf format, 141KB)

6. Many suggestions -- starting with simple, no cost ones -- for energy savings (.pdf format, 154KB)

7. SenseDat Analyzer™ software version notes.

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