Space Light Hardware and Software system to monitor power consumption of various household ...

84 Pages·2015·5.74 MB·English

Space Light
Hardware and Software system to
monitor power consumption of various
household appliances
Abstract
In the past years energy costs have increased. There is greater demand in
energy and concerns about global warming have generally contributed to
a global push for energy preservation. Electricity represents 17.7% of the
world’s overall energy resources consumed in 2011 and demand for electric-
ity is set to continue to grow faster than any other final form of energy.
Between 2010 and 2035 the demand will increase by 70%, or 2.2% per year
on average. In Ireland from 2008 up to 2013 a domestic consumption elec-
tricity fuel prices have drastically increased by 18.3% and it is the fourth
highest price in EU.
The aim of this project is to develop a hardware and software system to
monitor power consumption of various household appliances and provide
the user with a feedback on their electricity consumption. The web appli-
cation would not only allow the user to view, compare and contrast their
electricity usage but also would motivate them to conserve the energy by
setting monthly targets. This will not only conserve the energy but also
minimize the household bills as now days the most beneficial way to spend
less on electricity bills is to keep constantly switching supplier.
Key words: Electricity; Power Meters; Appliances; Feedback System;
Energy Conservation;
Contents
1 Introduction 8
1.1 Project Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2 Project Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 Research 10
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Energy Management System Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3 Generic BEMS Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4 Energy Monitoring Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5 Low cost computing devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.5.1 Arduino Uno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.5.2 Alternative Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.5.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.6 Alternative Project Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.6.1 HBCI: Human-Building-Computer Interaction . . . . 15
2.6.2 Wireless Sensor Network for Single Phase Electricity
Monitoring System via ZigBee protocol . . . . . . . . 16
3 Design & Architecture 17
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 Approach and Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.3 Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3.1 Create Account & Access Account Details . . . . . . 18
3.3.2 View Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3.3 View Electricity Usage History . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3.4 View Appliance Electricity Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3.5 Set Power Consumption Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.3.6 View Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.3.7 Usage Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.4 Database Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.5 Technical Architecture Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.5.1 Electricity Power Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.5.2 Arduino Uno with WiFi Shield . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1
3.5.3 MQTT Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.5.4 Python Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.5.5 PostgreSQL Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.5.6 Web Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.5.7 The Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.6 User Interface Mock-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4 Implementation 25
4.1 Data Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.1.1 Arduino Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.1.2 Arduino Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.2 Data Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2.1 EC2 instance setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2.2 PuttyGen and Putty setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.2.3 Install HiveMQ on EC2 instance . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.2.4 Run HiveMQ as a service rather than a background
process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.2.5 Installed MQTT Message Log Plug-in . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.6 Additional component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.3 Data Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.3.1 Amazon RDS database set up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.4 API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.4.1 Project Structure and Environment . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.4.2 Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.4.3 Database table creates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4.4 API calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4.5 Security: password hashing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.4.6 Token-Based Authentication back-end implementation 40
4.5 User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.5.1 Project Structure and Environment . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.5.2 Single-Page Application (SPA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5.3 Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.5.4 AngularJS Token-Based Authentication front-end im-
plementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.5.5 MVC software architecture pattern . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.6 Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.6.1 AngularJS web application deployment . . . . . . . . 55
4.6.2 API deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.6.3 Register a Domain Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2
5 System Validation 60
5.1 Unit Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.2 Integration Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.3 System Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.4 Regression Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.5 Cross-Platform Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.6 User Testing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.7 Nielsen’s heuristics Evaluation and survey response . . . . . . 64
5.8 Issues found by test users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.9 Addressed issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.10 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6 Conclusion & Future Work 71
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.2 Future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.2.1 Analyse the power consumption of many appliances
on one electricity stream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.2.2 Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.2.3 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.3 Project strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.4 Project weaknesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.5 Learning Outcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Bibliography 74
A Survey 76
B Test user Space Light web app documentation 79
C MQTT documentation 81
3
List of Figures
2.1 Technological advancements on energy conservation in build-
ings [11] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Generic architecture model of building energy management
system [11] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Smart Meters and Outlets [11] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.4 Pulse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.5 Electricity power monitors with Arduino Uno . . . . . . . . . 13
2.6 Arduino Uno Architecture [14] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.7 Arduino Ethernet Shield on top of Arduino Uno [2] . . . . . . 14
2.8 Process flow of the HBCI Architecture [10] . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.9 Wirelesssensornetworkforsinglephaseelectricitymonitoring
system via ZigBee protocol concept design [1] . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1 Iterative & Incremental Development model [17] . . . . . . . 17
3.2 Use cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3 Create Account & Access Account Details use cases . . . . . 18
3.4 View Dashboard use case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.5 View Electricity Usage History use case . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.6 View Appliance Electricity Usage use case . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.7 Set Power Consumption Targets use case . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.8 View Help use case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.9 Usage Comparison use case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.10 Current ERD Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.11 Architecture Diagram, created with Visio 2013 . . . . . . . . 22
3.12 User Interface Screen Mock-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.1 Both meters with Arduino Uno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.2 Pin and ISR set up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.3 MQTT connection and message transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.4 Raw data viewed on the phone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.5 EC2 instance security configuration screen-shot . . . . . . . . 28
4.6 Launched EC2 instance overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.7 PuTTyGen main screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.8 Putty main screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4
4.9 HiveMQ configuration.properties file code snippet to illus-
trate where to enable websockets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.10 Constant log file reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.11 Extract necessary data from the log file obtained line . . . . . 34
4.12 API project structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.13 Usage model declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.14 Encrypt the password and verify the password functions . . . 40
4.15 Token generation and decode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.16 Decorator declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.17 Decorator function to validate request header . . . . . . . . . 42
4.18 Decorator added to the API call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.19 Web application structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.20 index.html page content div . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.21 Few states of the web application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.22 Authentication service factory declaration code snippet . . . 47
4.23 Log-in service declaration withing the factory . . . . . . . . . 47
4.24 All services within the factory are added together and returned 47
4.25 Request header declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.26 Log-in view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.27 Email input field validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.28 Registration view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.29 Data obtained from the registration form placed within the
dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.30 Dashboard view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.31 Dimple pie chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.32 Side Navigation and Toolbar view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.33 History view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.34 Monthly statistics table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.35 Appliance view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.36 Goal Setting view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.37 Comparison view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.38 Help dialog view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.39 Nginx reverse proxy configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.40 API run.sh script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.1 Unit Test representation [18] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.5 Test Case template with sample test cases and overall outcome 62
5.6 Question 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.7 Question 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.8 Question 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.9 Question 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.10 Question 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.11 Question 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.12 Question 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5
5.13 Question 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.14 Question 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.15 Question 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.16 Question 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.17 Question 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.18 Question 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.19 Question 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.20 Question 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.21 Question 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.22 Question 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.23 Question 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6
List of Tables
4.1 First part: API call list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.2 Second part: API call list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.1 Browser and platform support overview . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7
Chapter 1
Introduction
”In 2012, in Ireland an electricity consumption fell by 2.9% to 24 TWh, but
energy-related emissions from electricity generation grew by 6.6%. Energy
useinbuildingsfellby3.0%andaccountedfor31%offinaldemand. Energy
consumption per household was 5.5% lower in 2012 than in 2011 and resi-
dential energy use fell by 4.2%. In Ireland from 2008 up to 2013 a domestic
consumption electricity fuel prices have drastically increased by 18.3% and
it is the fourth highest price in EU due to heavy dependence on imported
oil and gas, and the introduction of carbon tax.” [9] [5] [19]
FactsstatedaboveclearlyindicatethatIreland’selectricityconsumption
isslowlyreducingbuttheemissionsfromtheelectricitygenerationgrowand
fuel prices have drastically increased. Solutions that would help electrical
conservation need to be introduced in order to save more energy within
residential buildings. This would lead to lower household bills, informed
and motivated users who would conserve and perhaps care more about the
environment.
1.1 Project Objectives
The objective of this project is to develop a hardware and software system
to monitor the power consumption of various household appliances. The
gathered data then can be represented in the various graphs and statistics,
it can be used to indicate what appliances cost more to run and could be
candidate for replacement. The project can be broken down into three main
components: data acquisition and transfer to the collection service, data
storage and user interface.
The main objectives of this project are as follows:
• Research energy management systems
• Research hardware components of the project
• Research technologies and development techniques
8