REAL-TIME ENERGY MONITORING SYSTEM

The Real-Time Energy Monitoring System addresses Malawi's critical energy challenges by providing an affordable, scalable, and offline-capable solution for household-level energy monitoring, designed specifically for rural and peri-urban communities with limited grid access. Malawi's energy landscape, characterized by only 11% grid connectivity, 18.2% tariff increases in 2022, and frequent power outages lasting up to 12 hours daily as of 2024, underscores the need for efficient energy management tools.

This system leverages a Raspberry Pi 4 as the central processing unit, integrated with SCT-013 current sensors and a PCF8591 analog-to-digital converter to measure appliance-level electricity usage with ±2% precision. The system processes data locally using Python 3.13+ and the smbus2 library, storing it in a lightweight SQLite database. A FastAPI backend (v0.104.1+) delivers real-time data via efficient API endpoints, while a Flutter 3.0+ mobile application offers an intuitive dashboard with Syncfusion chart-powered visualizations, supporting offline access through SQLite caching.