Good practice:

Energy Monitoring App

Energy efficiency is an important part of energy transition. Especially for owners of a photovoltaic system, it is necessary to know which consumers spend how much electricity in order to be able to optimize the system's own consumption. For individual consumers, there is usually an app from the manufacturer that shows the corresponding values. But if you have an inverter from manufacturer A, the battery storage from manufacturer B and an air heat pump from manufacturer C, then it becomes difficult to monitor the energy flows sensibly.

A smartphone app was developed as a solution to bring all data together and to visualize item. Data is collected from devices of the Technische Alternative RT GmbH and made available in the CMI Portal of TA. Once retrieved, data is stored locally on the smartphone and is also available without an Internet connection.

Main project partner: Gemeinhardt AG Heizung-Solar-Bad (Main-user of App)
Second project partner: Technische Alternative RT GmbH.
They provide the sensors and provide an online portal, which reads the data from the sensors. They deliver the backend, on which Hof University/iisys can base their app on.
Research Partner: Hof University/iisys. They develop the app.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Bavaria are enabled to implement application-oriented research results through technology transfer between universities and SMEs. With green technologies, companies gain a unique selling point.

The Green Technology Workshop at the Hof University is being 50% co-financed with a grant of € 1,474,000 from ERDF funds.

One scientific staff member was working on the project for half a year.

There was no additional equipment needed to carry out the project.

Research partner: Hof University was able to gain more knowledge in Cross-platform-development and user interface design.

Application partners: Without the resources from Hof University the development of such an app would not have been economically feasable for the cooperating companies.

The Public: The app has been made Open Source. Others, who are interested in the technology, can use the app free of cost. Research results have been made public by René Peinl at CENTRIC 2018.

Finding project partners can be difficult. The day-to-day-business at the implementing partner company has more priority. After the project is finished there is often no time to evaluate the test results thoroughly, because the company has to move on with its daily business.

The good practice is much more than just a piece of software others can reuse. Yes, the software is available and it can be found on github:
https://github.com/iisys-hof/dfap
https://github.com/iisys-hof/energymonitor.
The good practice is about working together with regional partners, identifying challenges for the partner and mapping them to research interests of the research institution in order to create both a direct benefit for the company and for the research lab. Ideally, a community around the open source software arises, where other regional, national or even international partners join in and help keeping the software up to date and enhancing it for further use cases.
We found it also beneficial to include not only an application partner, but also an IT company, who will strengthen dissemination and helps to make the project more effective.
Through funding by ERDF Hof University can respond to the needs of SMEs and and can hire research assistants more permanently.