A Wireless Sensor Network for Residential Building Energy and Indoor Environmental Quality Monitoring: Design, Instrumentation, Data Analysis and Feedback

Abstract

This article outlines the implementation and use of a large wireless instrumentation solution to collect data over a long time period of a few years for three collective residential buildings. The sensor network consists of a variety of 179 sensors deployed in building common areas and in apartments to monitor energy consumption, indoor environmental quality, and local meteorological conditions. The collected data are used and analyzed to assess the building performance in terms of energy consumption and indoor environmental quality following major renovation operations on the buildings. Observations from the collected data show energy consumption of the renovated buildings in agreement with expected energy savings calculated by an engineering office, many different occupancy patterns mainly related to the professional situation of the households, and seasonal variation in window opening rates. The monitoring was also able to detect some deficiencies in the energy management. Indeed, the data reveal the absence of time-of-day-dependent heating load control and higher than expected indoor temperatures because of a lack of occupant awareness on energy savings, thermal comfort, and the new technologies installed during the renovation such as thermostatic valves on the heaters. Lastly, we also provide feedback on the performed sensor network from the experiment design and choice of measured quantities to data communication, through the sensors’ technological choices, implementation, calibration, and maintenance.

Integrated Simulation and Calibration Framework for Heating System Optimization

“…Furthermore, such an evaluation would be highly dependent on the utilized model and the available data, while both aspects should be separated from the methodology. As we will outline in this paper, obtaining accurate or even sufficiently complete data is a non-trivial task, especially when older heating systems have to be retrofitted with measurement devices (sensors), as data acquisition is a research topic in itself [37][38][39]. Our main contribution lies in the methodology and the development of a customizable pipeline from measured data to optimized parameters, which is applied to measured data of a real heating system.…”

Seamless real-time thermal imaging system with ESP8266: wireless data transfer and display using UDP

“…Their work emphasized the advantages of UDP in scenarios where occasional data loss is acceptable, making it a suitable choice for applications with time-sensitive data such as temperature monitoring and sensor data transmission. Bourdeau et al [26] presented a wireless sensor network-based thermal imaging system for building energy management. Their study focused on utilizing thermal sensors and wireless communication to monitor and analyze thermal patterns in buildings.…”

Spectrogram Inversion for Reconstruction of Electric Currents at Industrial Frequencies: A Deep Learning Approach

“…Submetering systems involve the installation of additional meters at specific points within a facility to monitor energy consumption in different areas or with specific equipment. Wireless Sensor Networks use wireless communication to connect sensors and devices for monitoring various parameters, including electric quantities and energy consumption [ 3 , 4 ]. These sensors can be deployed in both indoor and outdoor environments.…”