How much energy do you think is wasted everyday on seemingly harmless electrical items you find at offices worldwide such as cold/hot water dispensers? What about an idled computer? The office printer? Alone, these items do not seem to take up that much energy, but like everything else, compounded with the all the items of an office building and magnified with all the buildings in, for example, an entire city or province, the energy wasted by these appliances can be quite shocking. Sure, turning a light switch off when you’re not in the room seems like a great way to save electricity, but unless there’s a measurable method to gauge and assess all the energy being used in a building, it’s extremely hard to quantify energy wastefulness into savings as well as improve methods of cutting back unnecessary energy use. That’s where Startech Global’s Smart Sockets come in. Smart Socket is a patented device invented and produced by Startech Global to help consumers and businesses monitor electricity usage and take measures to reduce consumption and help the environment.
How It Works
Connected between the power outlet and plugged-in appliances, Smart Socket will measure and display electricity consumption similar to how the odometer of a car records mileage. The built in digital meter can be programmed to display power measurements in multiple metrics (watts,voltage, amperage, power rate), and can measure power consumption for specific time intervals or from the start.
For Homes or Businesses
Startech has produced two separate Smart Socket series to address different needs. The Enterprise series will have networking capability and allow multiple Smart Sockets to connect to a central controller so that the energy grid of an entire organization can be monitored and analyzed.
The Home series is easy to use and can be applied to any electronic house hold device. It will turn any power outlet into a multi-outlet surge protector. With the built in Smart Socket monitoring, energy savings can be monitored and achieved in any household.
Java Software Integration
Specialized software developed by Startech is integrated within the hardware allows users to build reports and analyze energy use. Custom applications can be built on top of this software to streamline energysaving procedures.
On the right there show’s a screen shot of the interface of the software associated with the Smart Socket that allows users to monitor energy use closely.
Green Office Study
In our initial analysis of Smart Socket within one of our smaller Offices located in China, we tested the device on common appliances commonly left idle. The results are below. If a single office can lose this much money within a year, we estimate the savings for a large building can reach millions!
| Cool/Hot Water Dispenser | Computer (Sleeping Mode) | Laser printer (Sleeping Mode) | Blower (for Central Air conditioning system) | |||||
| Number | Electricity (KWH) | Number | Electricity (KWH) | Number | Electricity (KWH) | Number | Electricity (KWH) | |
| Work night (14 hours) | 1 | 1.64 | 1 | 0.47 | 1 | 0.23 | 1 | 7.6 |
| Weekend | 1 | 2.81 | 1 | 0.81 | 1 | 0.39 | 1 | 13.03 |
| Total per week | 1 | 13.82 | 1 | 3.96 | 1 | 1.94 | 1 | 64.06 |
| Total per year | 1 | 718.79 | 1 | 205.99 | 1 | 100.81 | 1 | 3330.97 |
| Electricity Bill @0.15/KWH | 1 | $108 | 1 | $31 | 1 | $15 | 1 | $500 |
| Small Office | 2 | $216 | 10 | $309 | 2 | $30 | 6 | $2,998 |
The Future of Smart Socket
Startech Global has agreed to assist a Chinese provincial transportation company in conducting its own studies of energy and costs saving. Current estimates show this company’s electricity costs alone running upwards of 44 million dollars a year.
Initially, the government wants to install 10 to 20 nodes of measuring terminals in 2 offices. The terminals will send real time measuring data to the central controller, technology also developed by Startech.
By analyzing the electricity data collected hour by hour, the company can find out the exact amount of energy wasted by not turning off specific appliances. A ROI analysis will be presented to the top management to advise them potential energy savings methods they can engage in to help prevent the waste of energy and money. Effective policies can be developed based off the information gathered from the Smart Socket implementation. The plan is to eventually conduct a company wide implantation with tens of thousands of Smart Socket terminals on every appliance as well as centralized management software monitoring the electricity wasting and enforce the energy saving policy for every employee, every office and every division.
For more information on our Smart Socket device and how you can be part of the worldwide “Green” movement, please contact us.
Category: News