Design and Implementation of a Real-Time Energy Monitoring and Reporting System

Real-time energy monitoring is a way of monitoring energy consumption and quality of power within a building or a network of buildings. It provides a more efficient approach to using energy by making informed decisions based on data that has been collected in the past and using it to predict future trends. In this project, we have developed a Real-Time Energy Monitoring and Reporting Tool for the Hal Marcus College of Science and Engineering building of the University of West Florida (UWF). This project is a culmination of work done by two Capstone Project teams, with one team working on the hardware configuration of the project for recording the data in a database and the other working on the software interface for viewing, monitoring and reporting the data. This project allows the University to track energy consumption and power quality in real time, review historical data, and find patterns that can be used to regulate energy usage and power quality. The visualization and reporting software has been written in Python, has a MYSQL database, and is used in conjunction with a separately developed hardware interface. The software is embedded in a hardware interface that uses IoT connected sensors to measure data from UWF Buildings. Data such as voltage, current, power, frequency, etc. is collected from the sensors and stored in a database. The software developed in this project is used to interpret the data and display it in user defined graphical and tabular outputs. The developed energy-monitoring and reporting software has been installed in the central data center located in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.