Blue Line Innovations, PowerCost Monitor

The PowerCost Monitor by Blue Line Innovations is helping homes keep track of their energy usage.

by Don Ames

This is a whole house monitor that comes in two units. A sending unit that attaches to your homes power meter and a receiving unit that is placed somewhere in your home (the kitchen countertop is a good place). The sending unit that is attached to the power meter works on the older spinning wheel meters and the new digital meters. With a clamp that grabs hold of the perimeter of the glass cover and holds a electronic eye over the spinning wheel or over a special lense that is part of the digital meters. The sending unit transmits a wireless signal to the receiving unit which displays the all important information.

With the PowerCost Monitor you will get a real time display of your power usage right that second. Plug in the money you pay for your electricity and the monitor will tell you how much money your spending on electricity. One ad for the monitor explains,”This simple device provides real time feedback on how you’re consuming electricity so you can make changes that reduce your usage.” In other words, when to tell the kids to turn off the flat screen if they are not watching it.

I set up the PowerCost Monitor at a residence and it work very well. I even asked the homeowner to keep record of the usage level every half  hour on a separate sheet of paper.  It was interesting to see the usage figure change as we went around the house turning on this appliance and that to see what appliance or fixture used the most juice. It became apparent that the secret to saving juice was being aware of power behavior patterns. How the homeowner lived in the house was as important as how much power the microwave used when running. The microwave uses a certain amount of juice when on, so how much we run the micrwave is a power usage issue. The range uses a certain amount of energy when running, so how much we use the range is a power usage issue. But even more important is the issue of which appliance do we use to heat the casserole – the range or the microwave?

This is one of the real benefits of a power monitor – it makes us aware of our attitude and reaction to using electricity.

The PowerCost Monitor sells for $119.00 and is available from amazon and ebay.