PowerAPI is a middleware toolkit for building software-defined power meters. Software-defined power meters are configurable software libraries that can estimate the power consumption of software in real-time. PowerAPI supports the acquisition of raw metrics from a wide diversity of sensors (eg., physical meters, processor interfaces, hardware counters, OS counters) and the delivery of power consumptions via different channels (including file system, network, web, graphical). As a middleware toolkit, PowerAPI offers the capability of assembling power meters «à la carte» to accommodate user requirements.

PowerAPI is an open-source project developed by the Spirals project-team, a joint research group between the University of Lille and Inria.

More information about the project can be found on the PowerAPI website.

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To learn more about making a contribution to PowerAPI, please see our Contributing guide.

• xPUE: Extending Power Usage Effectiveness Metrics for Cloud Infrastructures: G. Fieni, R. Rouvoy, L. Seinturier. IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing (TSUSC). 2025.
• PowerAPI: A Python framework for building software-defined power meters: G. Fieni, D. Romero Acero, P. Rust, R. Rouvoy. Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS). The Open Journal, June 2024.
• Evaluating the Impact of Java Virtual Machines on Energy Consumption: Z. Ournani, MC. Belgaid, R. Rouvoy, P. Rust, J. Penhoat. 15th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM). October 2021, Bari, Italy.
• SelfWatts: On-the-fly Selection of Performance Events to Optimize Software-defined Power Meters: G. Fieni, R. Rouvoy, L. Seiturier. 20th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Internet Computing (CCGRID 2021). May 2021, Melbourne, Australia.
• SmartWatts: Self-Calibrating Software-Defined Power Meter for Containers: G. Fieni, R. Rouvoy, L. Seiturier. 20th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Internet Computing (CCGRID 2020). May 2020, Melbourne, Australia.
• Taming Energy Consumption Variations in Systems Benchmarking: Z. Ournani, MC. Belgaid, R. Rouvoy, P. Rust, J. Penhoat, L. Seinturier. 11th ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE'2020). April 2020, Edmonton, Canada.
• The Next 700 CPU Power Models: M. Colmant, R. Rouvoy, M. Kurpicz, A. Sobe, P. Felber, L. Seinturier. Elsevier Journal of Systems and Software (JSS). 144(10):382-396, Elsevier.
• WattsKit: Software-Defined Power Monitoring of Distributed Systems: M. Colmant, P. Felber, R. Rouvoy, L. Seinturier. IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing (CCGrid). April 2017, Spain, France. pp.1-14.
• Process-level Power Estimation in VM-based Systems: M. Colmant, M. Kurpicz, L. Huertas, R. Rouvoy, P. Felber, A. Sobe. European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys). April 2015, Bordeaux, France. pp.1-14.
• Monitoring Energy Hotspots in Software: A. Noureddine, R. Rouvoy, L. Seinturier. Journal of Automated Software Engineering, Springer, 2015, pp.1-42.
• Unit Testing of Energy Consumption of Software Libraries: A. Noureddine, R. Rouvoy, L. Seinturier. International Symposium On Applied Computing (SAC), March 2014, Gyeongju, South Korea. pp.1200-1205.
• Informatique : Des logiciels mis au vert: L. Seinturier, R. Rouvoy. J'innove en Nord Pas de Calais, NFID, 2013.
• PowerAPI: A Software Library to Monitor the Energy Consumed at the Process-Level: A. Bourdon, A. Noureddine, R. Rouvoy, L. Seinturier. ERCIM News, Special Theme: Smart Energy Systems, 92, pp.43-44. ERCIM, 2013.
• Mesurer la consommation en énergie des logiciels avec précision: A. Bourdon, R. Rouvoy, L. Seinturier. 01 Business & Technologies, 2013.
• A review of energy measurement approaches: A. Noureddine, R. Rouvoy, L. Seinturier. ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, ACM, 2013, 47 (3), pp.42-49.
• Runtime Monitoring of Software Energy Hotspots: A. Noureddine, A. Bourdon, R. Rouvoy, L. Seinturier. International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), September 2012, Essen, Germany. pp.160-169.
• A Preliminary Study of the Impact of Software Engineering on GreenIT: A. Noureddine, A. Bourdon, R. Rouvoy, L. Seinturier. International Workshop on Green and Sustainable Software (GREENS), June 2012, Zurich, Switzerland. pp.21-27.

If you use PowerAPI in a scientific publication, we would appreciate citations to this paper: https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06670

PowerAPI is licensed under the BSD-3-Clause License. See the LICENSE file for details.