The Raspberry Pi Power Monitor is a combination of custom hardware and software that will allow you to monitor your unique power situation in real time (<0.5 second intervals), including consumption, generation, and net-production. The data are stored to a database and displayed in a Grafana dashboard for monitoring and reporting purposes.
This project is derived from and inspired by the resources located at https://learn.openenergymonitor.org.
This code accompanies DIY circuitry (see the references above) that supports monitoring of up to 6 current transformers and one AC voltage reading. The individual readings are then used in calculations to provide real data on consumption and generation, including the following key metrics:
- Total home consumption
- Total solar PV generation
- Net home consumption
- Net home generation
- Total current, voltage, power, and power factor values
- Individual current transformer readings
These steps are for the Raspbian (Debian-based) operating system. I highly recommend using the "lite" version of Raspbian to avoid wasting resources on a GUI. Also, I have only tested this code on a Raspberry Pi 3b+. I would not recommend using an older Raspberry Pi.
In summary, the following steps will:
- Update and upgrade your Pi
- Install Python 3.7 & pip
- Install Git
- Install Nginx (optional, but recommended for viewing raw data - more on this in the project Wiki)
- Install Docker
- Download the InfluxDB and Grafana docker images
- Download the source code for this project
- Install the Python dependencies for the source code
You should assign a static IP address to your Pi and issue the following commands over an SSH connection. There are countless guides on the internet to do this... here is one.
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Update and upgrade your system:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
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Install Python 3.7, Git, Pip, and Nginx:
sudo apt-get install python3.7 python3-pip git nginx
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Install Docker
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh sudo sh get-docker.sh
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Add the default Pi user to the docker group. If you are using a different username, replace Pi with your username:
sudo usermod -aG docker pi
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Enable the SPI interface on the Pi
sudo raspi-config
Use the arrow keys and the Enter key to:
- Select "5 Interfacing Options"
- Select "P4 SPI"
- Enable the SPI interface
- Press Tab twice to move the selector to Finish
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Modify the permissions of the webroot so that Python can write to it. If you're not using the
pi
username, be sure to change it before executing the commands below:sudo chown -R pi /var/www/html/ sudo chgrp -R www-data /var/www/html/ sudo chmod -R 750 /var/www/html/
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Update the Nginx configuration to turn file indexing on, and remove the default Nginx index file:
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
Find the section that looks like:
location / { # First attempt to serve request as file, then # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404. try_files $uri $uri/ =404; }
... and add
autoindex on;
underneath thetry_files
line. The block should look like this:location / { # First attempt to serve request as file, then # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404. try_files $uri $uri/ =404; autoindex on; }
Close your text editor with Ctrl-x, then a "Y" to save the file. Then, remove the default index.html file:
rm /var/www/html/index.nginx-debian.html
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Reboot your Pi:
sudo reboot 0
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Download and run the Grafana and InfluxDB Docker images
docker run -d --name grafana -p 3000:3000 grafana/grafana docker run -d --name influx -p 8086:8086 -v /opt/influxdb:/var/lib/influxdb influxdb
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Run
docker ps
and confirm that the two docker containers are running. Here is what the output should look like. Your container IDs will be different, but the rest should be the same.pi@raspberrypi:~ $ docker ps CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 013caaf13240 influxdb "/entrypoint.sh infl…" 19 seconds ago Up 16 seconds 0.0.0.0:8086->8086/tcp influx 8e763709b515 grafana/grafana "/run.sh" 3 minutes ago Up 3 minutes 3000/tcp, 0.0.0.0:3000->3000/tcp grafana
Note: If you get a permission error when executing the
docker ps
command, make sure you entered the correct username in step #4 and that you have either logged out and back in, or simply rebooted your Pi. -
Download the source code for this project
git clone --single-branch -b master https://github.com/David00/rpi-power-monitor.git
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Navigate into the
rpi-power-monitor
directory and install the Python library dependencies.cd rpi-power-monitor pip3 install -r requirements.txt
Head to the project Wiki to get started on the rest of the setup process.
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OpenEnergyMonitor and forum member Robert.Wall for guidance and support
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The
spidev
project on PyPi for providing the interface to read an analog to digital converter
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