Remote monitoring of circuit breakers

This paper provides an historical review of communication techniques utilized with low voltage circuit breakers from the earliest simple mechanical indicator devices to today's enterprise-wide Internet based schemes. The initial information was limited to open/close status. Cause-of-trip was then available, followed next by basic electrical metering data, and most recently by full power quality data including harmonics and waveform data. These capabilities are becoming increasingly important since, with the deregulation of the electric utility industry, utility customers need additional information on energy consumption including time-of-use and sub-metering data to minimize their energy cost. Circuit breakers with communications are ideally suited to provide such information.