Archived Forum

Relatively new to all this.

I am looking to be able to monitor electricity use and PV systems in 7 flats in a social housing development. The aim is to be able to measure electricity use, levels of self use of generated energy from what are relatively small PV systems and evaluate their efficacy in terms of meeting socio-economic objectives for the tenants.

However, there will be no internet connection available. My first though was to use an EmonTX in each flat connected to a base unit containing a nuelectronics real time data log & I/O sheild. However there is a lot of metalwork in the stud walls and also the floors of the building conversion, meaning there is likely to be transmission problems.

Reading information on the Emon Pi it appears instruction can be given to log data to the SD card. This being the case, all of the above would be superfluous.

Questions:

Am I correct in this assumption?

I take it units would need to be programmed before installation on site?

Could a laptop be easily plugged in to the unit via  USB to download data on a regular basis as say a CSV file and how would this be achieved?

Would any additional programming be required?

Thanks in anticipation of your help.