OpenEnergyMonitor. CT sensors - Introduction. Yhdc Current Transformer: SCT-013-000 Basics Current transformers (CTs) are sensors used to measure alternating current.
They are particularly useful for measuring whole building electricity consumption (or generation for that matter). I can now monitor power consumption of my solar powered Pi. A while back, I posted that I had connected my Pi to a large solar panel and Lithium battery so I could run it 24/7/365.
Recently, using some parts purchased from Adafruit, I added a current sensor so I could monitor if the battery was charging or discharging. This was my first experiment with the GPIO pins. It is a fairly simple circuit, with just one chip to read an analog output from a cheap current sensor. Although the solar power part was expensive, the current sensor part was only about $10. It works well, but I'm having some difficulty getting the Python script to run continuously so I'll have to keep working on that.