Projects
Peak Demand Management
ESP32 connected to UART connection
I have been working on deploying systems to shave electrical use during peak price periods. One part of the system is new management rules for the home battery that was installed with a solar system. This can power some of the load for hours. However, I am also contending with heat pumps. These would quickly drain the battery. To fully cut electrical use during the peak period there are two limits I need to be aware of. The battery can output up to 5kW at any given time and has a total capacity of about 10kWhr. Exceeding ether number causes use of more expansive electricity. As installed, the heat pumps did not support scheduling and could only be controlled by a basic remote control. Luckily, the control boards included an UART interface. After connecting this interface to a microcontroller with WIFI and working out some firmware, advanced automation is possible.
Website development
I am responsible for the design and management of several websites. SilverStripe is my primary platform of choice. I also have experience with WordPress and have been branching into Python based content management systems. I manage cloud virtual private servers to support these web sites. I’m also working on rolling out mTLS for extra security on admin areas. I have experience using git to keep everything organized and version controlled.