DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A GSM-BASED ENERGY METER


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DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A GSM-BASED ENERGY METER  

ABSTRACT

Wireless automation in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity and billing has come of age. Traditional metering methods for retrieving the energy data of consumers is not convenient. The present system of energy billing is error prone, time, resource and labour consuming. The problem worsens when consumers try to bypass meter units, thereby pay less than what is actually consumed or the case of overbilling by the Electricity Company as the case in many Nigerian houses.

This paper presents the design and implementation of a GSM based remote operation of an energy meter which proffers the solution to power theft, consumption control, auto billing and payment, data logging and labour reduction in power distribution and management

The objective of this project is to facilitate energy consumption measurement and its corresponding billing scheme.

The materials and method deployed herein is the use of a microcontroller unit that continually monitors the meter interfaced with a GSM MODEM with a dedicated SIM for remote operations. The method used to carry out this project is the principle of serial communication in collaboration with embedded systems. The meter provides corresponding billing Information on a LCD screen.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE i

TITLE PAGE ii

DECLARATION iii

CERTIFICATION iv

DEDICATION v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT vi

ABSTRACT vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION 1

i. BACKGROUND 1

ii. PROBLEM STATEMENT 2

iii. OBJECTIVES 2

iv. SIGNIFICANCE 3

v. SCOPE 3

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 HISTORY OF ELECTRIC ENERGY METERS 5

DIRECT CURRENT (DC)5

ALTERNATING CURRENT (AC)6

UNITS OF MEASUREMENT6

TYPES OF METERS7

ELECTROMECHANICAL METERS7

ELECTRONIC METERS9

SOLID STATE DESIGN9

TAMPERING AND SECURITY IN ENERGY METERS14

POWER LINE RELATED INTELLIGENT METERING (PRIME)15

INTRODUCTION TO GSM NETWORK15

MESSAGING OVER GSM NETWORK16

GSM NETWORK STRUCTURE17

CHAPTER THREE

DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROCEDURE 18

INTRODUCTION18

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION18

SYSTEM BLOCK DIAGRAM19

SECTION A. DESIGN PROCEDURE 19

HARDWARE DESIGN19

CIRCIUT ANALYSIS19

REGULATED POWER SUPPLLY20

BRIDGE RECTIFIER20

FILTERING CAPACITORS21

ZENER REGULATOR DESIGN23

TRANSISTOR TIP 4125

LM317T VOLTAGE REGULATOR25

RATED DC OUTPUT27

CURRENT SENSING DESIGN27

RELAY SWITCHING32

THE MICROCONTROLLER UNIT32

CRYSTAL OSCILLATOR DESIGN36

LED INDICATORS37

THE BUZZER39

INTERFACING THE LCD WITH THE MICROCONTROLLER39

INTERFACING THE GSM MODEM WITH MICROCONTROLLER41

THE MAX 232 IC43

SOFTWARE DESIGN46

SECTION B: CONSTRUCTION PROCEDURE 49

CIRCIUT DESIGN USING PRINTED CIRCIUT BOARD (PCB)49

CASING AND PACKAGING51

CHAPTER FOUR

PERFORMANCE AND COST EVALUATION 55

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION55

DESIGN SIMULATION55

PERFORMANCE TEST55

COST EVALUATION59

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSIONS 63

SUMMARY63

CONCLUSION63

RECOMMENDATIONS64

REFERNCES 65

APPENDICE 68

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 3.1 PIC18F2550 FEATURES 33

TABLE 3.2 VALUE OF CAPACITOR USED 36

TABLE 3.3 LCD PIN FUNCTIONS 40

TABLE 3.4 AT COMMAND AND RESPONSE 42

TABLE 4.1 SMS COMMAND AND FUNCTIONS 59

TABLE 4.1 COST EVALUATION 60

LIST OF FIGURES

FIG 2.1 A 3Ø electromechanical induction meter, metering 100 A 240/415 V supply 7

FIG 2.2 A digital meter 8

FIG 2.3 A solid state energy meter design 9

FIG 2.4 PRIME core structure 15

FIG 2.5 GSM network structure 17

FIG 3.1 SYSTEM BLOCK DIAGRAM 19

FIG. 3.2 POWER RECTIFICATION CIRCUIT 20

FIG.3.3 ZENER REGULATOR CIRCUIT 24

FIG. 3.4 TIP 41 BUFFER TRANSISTOR 25

FIG. 3.5 BLOCK DIAGRAM OF LM317T 26

FIG. 3.6 LM 317T IN CIRCUIT REGULATION 26

FIG. 3.7 FUNCTIONAL BLOCK DIAGRAM OF ACS755-100CB 28

FIG. 3.8 OUTPUT VOLTAGE VS SENSED CURRENT OF ACS755 AT 5.0 V POWER

SUPPLY AND VARYING TEMPERATURE 29

FIG. 3.9 CURRENT SENSOR CIRCUITRY 30

FIG. 3.10 THE RELAY CIRCUIT 31

FIG. 3.11 THE PIC18F2550 PIN CONFIGURATION 33

FIG.3.12 BLOCK DIAGRAM OF PIC18F2550 35

FIG.3.13 CRYSTAL OSCILLATOR CIRCUIT 37

FIG. 3.14 LED SCHEMATIC SYMBOL AND I-V CHARACTERISTICS CURVES SHOWING THE DIFFERENT COLOURS AVAILABLE 38

FIG. 3.15 SERIES LED CONNECTION 38

FIG.3.16 LCD 40

FIG. 3.17 SMART GSM MODEM 41

FIG.3.18 INSERTING/REMOVING THE SIM CARD INTO THE MODEM 42

FIG.3.19 TYPICAL OPERATING CIRCUIT OF THE MAX 232 IC 44

FIG.3.20 THE MAX 232 INTERFACED WITH DB9 CONNECTOR TO MODEM 44

FIG.3.21 CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OF GSM BASED ENERGY METER 45

FIG. 3.23 FLOWCHART OF PROGRAMME 48

FIG. 3.24 PCB LAYOUT 50

FIG. 3.25 PLY WOOD SURFACE MOUNTING 51

FIG. 3.26 TOP VIEW OF CASING 52

FIG. 3.27 INSIDE VIEW OF PVC CASING 52

LIST OF PLATES

PLATE 3.1 SOLDERED COMPONENTS MOUNTED ON PCB 50

PLATE 3.2 SET UP OF GSM BASED ENERGY METER 53

PLATE 3.3 CASING OF METER UNIT SHOWING THE COMPONENTS AND GSM

MODEM 54

PLATE 4.1 THE METER UNIT INDICATING MODEM IS CONNECTED 55

PLATE 4.2 THE METER UNIT WITH LOAD CONNECTED 55

PLATE 4.3 LCD SCREEN INDICATING ENERGY CONSUMPTION DETAILS 56

PLATE 4.4 LCD SCREEN INDICATING THE METER CHECKING FOR SMS 56

PLATE 4.5 SCREEN SHOT OF SMS RECEIVED FROM THE METER UNIT 57

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND

Today, humanity can be classified as living in a “machine society” where technological tools are predominantly at different levels, interfacing in the day–to-day activity of man.

These livelihood activities constitute and deliver economic, social and political benefits and potential risks to the survivability of nations –especially developing nations like ours.

Electricity has become one of the basic requirements of human civilization, being widely deployed for domestic, industrial and agricultural purposes. In spite of the very well developed sources of electricity, there are a number of problems with distribution, metering, billing and control of consumption. Electricity is one of the vital requirements for sustainment of comforts of life and so it should be used very judiciously for its proper utilization [1]. But in our country we have lot of localities where we have surplus supply for the electricity while many areas do not even have access to it. Our policies of its distribution are also partially responsible for this because we are still not able to correctly estimate our exact requirements and still power theft is prevailing [1].

On the other hand consumers are also not satisfied with the services of power companies, most of the time they have complaints regarding statistical errors in their monthly bills.

Thus this project presents an innovation towards the minimization of technical errors and reduction in human dependency at the same time. With the help of this project the monthly energy consumption of a consumer will be received from a remote location directly. In this way human effort needed to record the meter readings which are till now recorded by visiting

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every home individually is reduced. This results in considerable loss of human hours and also provides considerable details regarding the average consumption of a locality so that power supply can be made according to these data. This will help the officials in deciding the specifications of transformers and other instruments required in power transmission and distribution.

This idea is economically efficient as well because the meter reading can be gotten at a very low cost. The implementation is done in such a way that a SMS is delivered to the GSM MODEM whose reading is to be noted and then that meter replies to the server in the SMS format and it is known that SMS costs are very low.

The GSM AMR takes the advantage of available GSM infrastructure nationwide coverage and the Short Messaging System (SMS) cell broadcasting feature to request and retrieve individual houses and building power consumption reading back to the energy provider wirelessly.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

In Conventional metering system to measure electricity consumption the energy provider company hire persons to visit each house and record meter reading manually which is used for billing, the bill then sent to consumer by post or hand delivery, this is not only sluggish but laborious, with the company having no control over these meters. There is a stark amount of revenue loss being incurred by our country due to energy theft which is a serious problem, people try to manipulate meter reading by adopting various corrupt practices such as current reversal, partial earth fault condition, bypass meter, magnetic interference etc. [2]. With the aid of this project a definite solution is proffered which allows power companies to have total control over energy meters and have real time information of same from a remote location with little human effort and at reduced cost as compared to conventional methods.

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OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this project is the remote monitoring and control of the domestic energy meter; its aims includes: to design a circuit which continuously monitors the meter reading and sends message to electricity company, programming of the GSM MODEM with AT (Attention) command sequence, interfacing the programmable chip with the personal computer, interfacing the programmable chip with the energy meter, interfacing of GSM MODEM with the programmable chip, sending messages from the remote phone to control device.

SIGNIFICANCE

The significance of these project benefits the Consumers of electric service and the electric services company as it provides precise consumption information, clear and accurate billing, automatic outage information and faster recovery, better and faster customer service, smart automated processes instead of manual work, accurate information from the network load to optimise maintenance and investments, detection of tampering of meters, demand and distribution management, better company credibility, consumer meter reading which eliminates cost and inadequacies of manual reading, observation and control of energy consumption and production, this is useful for planning and power allocation purposes.

The project provides learning’s on the following advancements in terms of theory practice: GSM modem interfacing to Microcontroller, PC interfacing with GSM modem, energy meter interfacing to Microcontroller, embedded C programming, PCB (printed circuit board) design, LCD interfacing to Microcontroller.

SCOPE

The scope of this project is to design and construct GSM based a one phase two wire energy meter with voltage rating of 220V, current of 25 -100A operating at 50Hz and interfaced

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with a microcontroller unit and GSM module with a LCD with the wireless communication features over SMS. Within the scope of this project, the prototype model is equipped with a dedicated SIM (Subscriber Identification Module).

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