One of the emerging markets for HomePlug technology (broadband networking over existing powerline infrastructure) is energy monitoring and management. There are quite a few companies in the HomePlug Alliance pavilion demoing these kind of products, but Jetlun Corporation has one of the slickest solutions being shown.

Jetlun’s solution allows consumers or businesses to place modules between your appliances and the electrical outlet so that they can be managed, completely over your existing electrical infrastructure, by their home base station.

What really makes this solution interesting is that it is highly configurable, supporting highly customizable profiles for managing your appliances. If you don’t want a microwave or inkjet printer to draw power when not in use, set up a profile to only turn it on from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. You can even turn a device on or off remotely – all from a web page.

I’d really like to see this kind of technology built into appliances themselves and maybe next year we will.