Power socket for reducing wastage of electrical energy and related aspects

An electrical power socket configured to reduce wastage of electrical energy by a connected electrical power consuming device, the electrical power socket comprising:

• one or more electrical power outlets;
• a power input configured to supply power to each of the one or more power outlets;
• at least one relay configured to control delivery of electrical power via the one or more power outlets;
• a power monitor configured to monitor the operational state of each power outlet and one or more characteristics of power drawn from each power outlet by a connected electrical device;
• and
• a microcontroller,
• wherein, the microcontroller is configured to:
• capture power monitored data representing the operational state of each power outlet and one or more characteristics of power drawn from each power outlet by the connected electrical device;
• send the captured power monitored data via a data network interface to a remote energy monitoring system;
• receive data from the remote energy monitoring system;
• and
• control the at least one relay to manage delivery of power via a power outlet responsive to a determination, based at least in part on the received data, that the power outlet is delivering power associated with a wasted energy usage classification to at least one device, and
• wherein the power monitor determines, at intervals of 3 Hz or less, one or more or all of the following characteristics of the power drawn from the electrical power socket by the device, together with time-stamp information:
• an AC line frequency, an AC line voltage, a current drawn on outlet, an active power drawn on the outlet, a reactive power drawn on the outlet, an apparent power drawn on the outlet, and a power factor;
• and wherein the microcontroller captures data from a data store at dynamic intervals to send to the remote energy monitoring system, wherein the dynamic intervals automatically increase in length if the power monitor detects no power is being drawn and/or if a relay has turned off the delivery of power from an outlet.