Design And Construction Of Energy Based Prepaid Meter

It is realized that one of the defective subsystems adding to the tremendous budgetary loss in Power Supply Company is the conventional metering and charging framework. Mistakes get presented at each phase of charging the energy rates, similar to blunders with conventional meters, reading errors by human while noticing the consumed energy; and blunder during the preparation of paid and the due bills. The solution for this downside is a prepaid charging or billing framework of consumed energy. Most of the developing countries are shifting their conventional energy management practices to the modern one by replacing the old and conventional energy meters with the smart meters outfitted with the prepaid facility to quantify the power consumption so as to decrease the income deficits looked by utilities because of customer unwillingness to make consumed energy payments on time. This proposed design embedded with GSM technology is advancement over conventional energy meter, which enables consumer to effectively manage their electricity usage. This device enables consumers to recharge the electricity balance, just by sending a SMS. It can also disconnect the home power supply connection, if there is low or zero balance in the system.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWELDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

1.0      INTRODUCTION

1.1      BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

1.2            PROBLEM STATEMENT

1.3            AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

1.4            PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT

1.5            SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT

1.6            APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT

1.7            BENEFIT OF THE PROJECT

1.8            PROJECT ORGANISATION

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1            HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF AN ELECTRIC METER

2.2            REVIEW OF UNIT OF MEASUREMENT

2.3            OTHER UNITS OF MEASUREMENT

2.4            TYPES OF METERS

2.5            REVIEW OF RELATED STUDY

2.6            REVIEW OF NINE DIGIT LCD DISPLAY

2.7            PARTS OF FIRE ALARM

CHAPTER THREE

3.0      METHODOLOGY

3.1      BLOCK DIAGRAM

3.2      CIRCUIT DIAGRAM

3.3      CIRCUIT OPERATION

3.4     CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION

3.5      PARTS LIST

3.5     HOW TO CONNECT ENERGY METER WITH ARDUINO

3.6      CALCULATION OF PULSES AND UNITS

3.7      PROGRAMING EXPLANATION

3.8      METER SETUP BLOCK DIAGRAM

3.9      METER SETUP WIRING DIAGRAM

3.10   POWER SUPPLY UNIT

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0      TESTING AND RESULTS

4.1            CONSTRUCTION PROCEDURE AND TESTING

4.2            ASSEMBLING OF SECTIONS

4.3            CASING AND PACKAGING

4.4            MOUNTING PROCEDURE

4.5            TESTING

4.6   BILL OF ENGINEERING MEASUREMENTS AND EVALUATION

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1            CONCLUSION

5.2            RECOMMENDATION

5.3            REFERENCES

CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                                        INTRODUCTION

1.1                                         BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

Electric energy consumed by the power devices is measured by a gadget known as an energy meter. Since 1980s, the energy meter’s journey started. When there were large energy meters which have been made with lots of innovations in energy meters to reduce its size and also the weight. Particularly, enhancement in accuracy, specifications and features of energy meters has been a topic of discussion.

In Nigeria, electromechanical energy meters were used for a long time. These meters work by checking and figuring the quantity of turns of an electrically directing metal plate which is made to rotate at a speed in respect to the power experiencing the meter. Those electromechanical energy meters are being supplanted by the newly digitized meters due to different problems like there is no way to upgrade those energy meters, its accuracy was limited and those meters were easy to manipulate because direction of revolving disc can be easily reversed.

Nowadays, digital energy meters can measure voltage, current and power also but electromechanical energy meters can only measure active power. Digital meters measure energy usage by highly integrated circuits, by capitalizing the voltage and current that gives the instantaneous power in watts. Digital meters show usage of electricity in digits on a liquid crystal display and those meters are highly accurate, inexpensive, theft reluctant, etc. The latest form of digital meter is the prepaid meter.

A prepaid electricity meter is a KWH (Kilowatt Hour) meter, measuring electrical consumption. The main difference is that this KWh meter counts backwards as the electricity is consumed and has a relay (an automatic switch) which disconnects the power when the KWh reading on the meter reaches zero. It further incorporates hardware which has the ability to decipher the pin number entered and convert it to KWh.

In this work we are focusing on Prepaid Electricity Energy Meter using GSM which is a good concept in which you can recharge its balance, like we do in our mobile phones. In this project we are building a automated system by using Arduino and GSM module. You can recharge the electricity balance through this system, just by sending a SMS. It can also disconnect the home power supply connection, if there is low or zero balance in the system. And this system will reads the energy meter readings and automatically send some updates to user’s mobile phone like low balance alert, cut off alert, resume alert and recharge alert.

1.2                                                PROBLEM STSATEMENT

There are many problem associated with the conventional meter. Following are some problems observed in those energy meters which should be rectified by using GSM based prepaid meter:

i.           Meter reading and other related tasks like bill payment are performed by a large number of staff i.e., large number of employees are required.

ii.          An expansive number of staff is utilized for meter reading and other related assignments like bill payment.

iii.         Billing errors due to carelessness of meter readers during meter reading and sometime billing estimation.

iv.        Consumer has to stand in queue for hours for bill payment.

v.          Careless usage of electricity by consumer who is unaware of its cost.

vi.        Consumers are not bound to pay bill on time

1.3                                  AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

At the end of this work, student involves shall be able to construct a digital types of electricity billing meter that sends electricity billing information to the user via SMS this device that does the following work: at the end of this work, students involved shall be:

i.                    Able to build this device that does the above function.

ii.                  Able to learn how to embed arduino and GSM module with prepaid meter

1.4                                         SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT

The functions of this device are what make it different from other types of prepaid meter. Such functions are:

i.                    It recharge  electricity balance through SMS,

ii.                   It can also connect or disconnect the home power supply connection, if there is low or zero balance in the system.

iii.                 And this system will reads the energy meter readings and automatically send some updates to user’s mobile phone like low balance alert, cut off alert, resume alert and recharge alert.