SBIR Phase I: Triumvi - A Rapidly Deployable, Energy-Harvesting Real-Power Meter

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是在能源分计量领域向准确性和可负担性的转变。这一计量系统将对商业地产分计量市场产生巨大影响。通过大幅降低与精确分计量相关的成本和知识障碍，并使分计量的成本与价值保持一致，该技术为电路级能源使用数据的大众市场方法打开了大门。这种商业分计量的市场预计将在六年内达到每年25亿美元，但随着低成本、高精度技术的引入，市场规模可能会大幅扩大。此外，据估计，仅访问计量数据就可以将建筑物内的能耗降低5%至15%，这意味着这些技术的广泛部署可以带来广泛的环境和能源安全效益。拟议的项目将通过使用能量收集（而不是插入式）设计，提供高收益质量的交流电力分计量，从而推动真正的电力计量技术的发展。这样做需要从根本上改进电路设计、嵌入式软件架构和信号分析。其结果是一个独立的系统，大大降低了部署和安装成本。该项目将简化系统实施，降低生产成本，并使Triumvi仪表能够共享数据，更重要的是，共享所收集的能源。具体的关键技术目标包括创建菊花链框架，通过该框架，计量系统中的各个节点可以共享能源和数据，提高无数潜在场条件下的准确性，以及创建运行时诊断系统以实时识别和修复人为错误。这些目标的研究和追求将在实验室和现场进行，在那里安装和精度可以与传统的硬连线计量解决方案进行基准测试。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is a shift towards both accuracy and affordability within the world of energy sub-metering. This metering system will have a dramatic impact on the market for submetering commercial real estate. By drastically reducing the cost and knowledge hurdles associated with accurate submetering and bringing the costs of submetering in line with value, this technology opens the door for a mass-market approach to circuit-level energy use data. The market for this commercial submetering is expected to reach $2.5 billion annually within six years, but could grow substantially larger with the introduction of low-cost, high-accuracy technologies. Additionally, it is estimated that access to metering data alone can reduce energy consumption within a building between 5% and 15%, meaning a wide deployment of these technologies could have wide-reaching environmental and energy security benefits. The proposed project will advance the state-of-the-art in true power metering by providing revenue quality AC power submetering using an energy-harvesting, as opposed to plug-in, design. Doing so requires fundamental improvements in circuit design, embedded software architecture and signal analysis. The result is a self-contained system that drastically reduces deployment and installation costs. This project will simplify the system implementation and reduce the cost of production, and the ability for Triumvi meters to share data and, more importantly, energy harvested. Specific key technical objectives include creating a daisy-chain framework through which individual nodes within a metering system can share energy and data, improving accuracy in the myriad of potential field conditions, and creating a system of runtime-diagnostics to identify, and fix, human error in real time. Study and pursuit of these objectives will take place both in the lab, as well is in the field, where installation and accuracy can be benchmarked against conventional hardwired metering solutions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.