OpenEnergyMonitor, who make open-source tools for energy monitoring, have been using Raspberry Pi since we launched in 2012. Like Raspberry Pi, they manufacture their hardware in Wales and send it to people all over the world. We invited co-founder Glyn Hudson to tell us why they do what they do, and how Raspberry Pi helps.

Hi, I’m Glyn from OpenEnergyMonitor. The OpenEnergyMonitor project was founded out of a desire for open-source tools to help people understand and relate to their use of energy, their energy systems, and the challenge of sustainable energy.

The next 20 years will see a revolution in our energy systems, as we switch away from fossil fuels towards a zero-carbon energy supply.

By using energy monitoring, modelling, and assessment tools, we can take an informed approach to determine the best energy-saving measures to apply. We can then check to ensure solutions achieve their expected performance over time.

We started the OpenEnergyMonitor project in 2009, and the first versions of our energy monitoring system used an Arduino with Ethernet Shield, and later a Nanode RF with an embedded Ethernet controller. These early versions were limited by a very basic TCP/IP stack; running any sort of web application locally was totally out of the question!

I can remember my excitement at getting hold of the very first version of the Raspberry Pi in early 2012. Within a few hours of tearing open the padded envelope, we had Emoncms (our open-source web logging, graphing, and visualisation application) up and running locally on the Raspberry Pi. The Pi quickly became our web-connected base station of choice (emonBase). The following year, 2013, we launched the RFM12Pi receiver board (now updated to RFM69Pi). This allowed the Raspberry Pi to receive data via low-power RF 433Mhz from our emonTx energy monitoring unit, and later from our emonTH remote temperature and humidity monitoring node.

In 2015 we went all-in with Raspberry Pi when we launched the emonPi, an all-in-one Raspberry Pi energy monitoring unit, via Kickstarter. Thanks to the hard work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the emonPi has enjoyed several upgrades: extra processing power from the Raspberry Pi 2, then even more power and integrated wireless LAN thanks to the Raspberry Pi 3. With all this extra processing power, we have been able to build an open software stack including Emoncms, MQTT, Node-RED, and openHAB, allowing the emonPi to function as a powerful home automation hub.

Emoncms Apps interface to emonPi home automation hub

Inspired by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, we manufacture and assemble our hardware in Wales, UK, and ship worldwide via our online store.

All of our work is fully open source. We believe this is a better way of doing things: we can learn from and build upon each other’s work, creating better solutions to the challenges we face. Using Raspberry Pi has allowed us to draw on the expertise and work of many other projects. With lots of help from our fantastic community, we have built an online learning resource section of our website to help others get started: it covers things like basic AC power theory, Arduino, and the bigger picture of sustainable energy.

To learn more about OpenEnergyMonitor systems, take a look at our Getting Started User Guide. We hope you’ll join our community.