Prepaid Energy Meter Using Smart Card

On 26th September 2016, Sindh High Court issued notices to the additional attorney general, K-Electric and NEPRA about a petition seeking the constitution of a judicial commission to probe the following: Alleged overbilling of electricity consumers to the tun

Project Title

Prepaid Energy Meter Using Smart Card

Project Area of Specialization

Wearables and Implantable

Project Summary

On 26th September 2016, Sindh High Court issued notices to the additional attorney general, K-Electric and NEPRA about a petition seeking the constitution of a judicial commission to probe the following:

• Alleged overbilling of electricity consumers to the tune of Rs 62 billion by the city's power utility
• Late Payment Surcharge (LPS) being 10% of the amount billed, excluding government taxes and duties
• No peak hours defined on a residential unit meter, costing Rs 6 per unit in addition to fixed charges
• Unjustifiable inclusion of theft charges in public bills

Motivation for this project has been to benefit both electricity consumers and utility company by providing technology-based solution for the problems of overbilling and electricity theft, as mentioned above. The prepaid energy meter designed in this project uses a pre-charged smart card to continue the energy supply until the charged units are consumed. A GSM module communicates with the user and keeps them informed about the status of the consumed and available units. This energy meter will also display the readings of power factor and remaining balance of units, besides the normal energy readings.

Project Objectives

• Prepaid usage of energy
• Removal of unjustified overbilling to consumers
• Removal of energy theft loss to the utility company
• Display of power factor, peak-hours and available units, besides energy readings.

• Sending of text alert to consumer when remaining balance is 20 units.

Project Implementation Method

This project consists of two parts. The first one is the main section based on energy meter and the second one is the recharging section, based on the smart card recharging feature.

The main section of energy metering reads the value/amount stored in the smart card and sets the meter to that value in units or in rupees. Thus, for Example, if the smart card is charged with 50 units through recharge section and inserted in the meter section, the meter will read the stored value in the smart card and set the meter to the stored unit value which is 50 units. Once 50 units are consumed, the meter will cut off the supply through relay and sends a message to the consumer through GSM. When the remaining available units are less than 15% of 50 units, the alert message will be sent to the consumer through GSM, so that consumer recharges the card before the disruption of supply.

   The recharging section reads the smart card through microcontroller and displays the user's information like name, current balance etc. on LCD. After reading the smart card, the user can recharge the card with the required number of units using keypad. Slabs for number of units will be defined in microcontroller program e.g. as per govt. order SRO-571. The consumer can calculate his bill as per his usage of electricity using the available online bill calculators.  The charged smart card can then be inserted in the main section for continuous energy supply.

Benefits of the Project

• Following are the benefits of this project:

• It will reduce human effort e.g. meter readers won't need to go from house to house in order to take a meter reading.
• It will eliminate the unjustified overbilling factor in residential and commercial units.
• It will also benefit the utility company by limiting the energy theft in residential and commercial areas.
• It will remove the paper-based billing.
• Customer will be careful while consuming energy.
• This project can also be used for other applications, e.g. in a fuel station in order to enhance technology-based operation and to reduce chances of payment frauds.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Final hardware will consist of two sections:

1. Main section of Energy Metering:
   1. Arduino Mega: For processing data obtained by sensors and to display them on LCD.
   2. LCD 20x4: For displaying energy meter quantities like Voltage, Current, Active/Real Power, Power Factor, Energy, Remaining Units and Maximum Demand Indicator.
   3. ACS-712(30A): For sensing main current up to 30A for both AC and DC.
   4. Voltage sensor: For sensing voltage up to 260VAC and to convert it into 5V DC.
   5. XOR 4030: For comparing Voltage and Current signals.
   6. OpAmp LM324: For detecting zero crossing in Voltage and Current signals.
   7. Relay (10A): For switching the AC main supply ON or OFF.
   8. Power Supply: For 5VDC supply for electronic components.

Smart Card Connector: For inserting Smart Card 

1. Recharging Section
   1. Smart Card (SLE4442): For storing data and keeping it secure for very long time.
   2. Arduino Uno: For processing data obtained by sensors and to display them on LCD.

LCD 16x2: For displaying smart card information like Account Info and Recharging Amount

Keypad (4x4): For inserting values/amount in smart card.

Final Deliverable of the Project

Hardware System

Type of Industry

Energy

Technologies

Wearables and Implantables

Sustainable Development Goals

Good Health and Well-Being for People, Affordable and Clean Energy, Reduced Inequality

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com