A method of partitioning and archiving electrical data received from a power monitoring system in a database including a plurality of tables organized by at least group and date. Data in the database is queried by first searching an electrical data catalog to determine whether the data exists in the database before searching the database. The data is targeted by group and by date, yielding faster response times and enhanced database scalability. An electrical data retention table includes a set of rules governing, for each group, the maximum age of the data that can be stored in the table in the database. A data table associated with a particular group whose age exceeds the maximum age provided in the set of rules is removed from the database and from the electrical data catalog. If desired, the entire data table can be imported back into the database.