This paper utilizes Zigbee, DSP and Web Services technologies to develop a novel power monitoring system (PMS) which is capable of detecting and handling power exceptions in real time and performing associated direct load control. Specifically, we design a portable power monitoring module that utilizes ZigBee for wireless communication and DSP (Digital Signal Processing) for rapidly computing power parameters and detecting power quality anomalies. Also, the Web Services technology is used to construct the communication infrastructure of the system. Hence, users can easily access and use the powering-monitoring related functions through networks. Finally, we construct a paradigm system for monitoring campus power consumptions to evaluate and validate the effectiveness of the proposed PMS. The testing results show that the functions of the proposed PMS can comply with the designed objectives. The paradigm PMS also demonstrates that good performances in direct load control and warning message transmission: the average time of from detecting a power abnormal event to completing direct load control is about 62 ms, and the average time of from sending the warning message by the server to receiving the message by the person in charge is about 10 s. This work possesses novelty for first time integrating ZigBee, DSP, and Web Services technologies to develop PMS, and can be a useful reference for future developments of PMS.
