Prepaid energy meter software

This concept is based on Pay first use later one. From the consumers point of perception, the idea is attractive because there is no Fear of disconnection and reconnection for some reason. The amount remaining in the meter gradually decreases. In the present billing system the EB are unable to keep track of the demand of consumers.

The consumer is facing problems like receiving due bills for bills that have already been paid as well as poor reliability of electricity supply and quality even if bills are paid regularly. The solutions for all these problems is to keep track of the consumers for accurate billing, monitoring, controlling and theft detection.

These are all the features to be taken into account for designing an efficient energy billing system. This paper Implementation of IOT based electricity controlled prepaid energy monitoring billpayment system addresses the problems faced by both the consumers and the Electricity Board. It mainly deals with energy meter, which utilizes the features of embedded systems i. The paper discusses comparison of Arduino and other controllers, and the application of GSM and Wi-Fi modems to introduce.

Smart concept. With the use of GSM modem the consumer as well as service provider will get the used energy reading with the respective amount, Consumers will even get notification in the form text through GSM when they are about to reach their threshold value, that they have set.

Also with the help of Wi- Fi modem the consumer can monitor his consumed reading and can set the threshold value through webpage. This system enables the electricity department to read the meter readings monthly without a person visiting each house.

This can be achieved by the use of Arduino unit that continuously monitor and records the energy meter reading in its permanent non- volatile memory location.

This system continuously records the reading and the live meter reading can be displayed on Android Application to the consumer on request.

This system also can be used to connect and disconnect the power supply of the house when needed. Birendrakumar Sahani. The proposed model is used to calculate the energy consumption of the household, and even make the energy unit reading to be handy. It reduces the wastage of energy and bring awareness among all. Mayur Rawte. This technology allows verified customers to check status of electricity usage by using Device identification number and password in real time.

This can be done from web application using Internet. Nazmat Toyin. The billing is handled locally by the web server and has not been interfaced with any online payment platform agencies. Shahnaj Parvin. The relative advantages of the proposed system. Azfar Tufail. The term Smart Meter is an advanced energy meter that measures consumption of electrical energy providing additional information compared to a conventional energy meter.

Distribution and maintenance of electricity is owned by local state electricity board. Electricity usage of a user is calculated by calculating KWH electricity used over the period of a month. This reading is stored locally on the meter. A worker from the electricity board takes this reading by visiting door to door and manually notes it.

This data is then forwarded to the head electricity board for evaluation, after evaluation bill is generated on the basis of the readings taken on monthly basis.

These generated bills are again sent door to door by members of workforce. Then the recipients pay their bills by their favourable payment option. This process consumes a lot of time and human efforts and bill is totally dependent on the reading of the workers.

So, whatever reading for a customer the worker takes, customer needs to pay for it and because of the post-paid method of payment for the electricity many users use electricity in very inefficient manner and sometimes they dont even pay for months. This results in loss to the electricity board and loss of electrical energy as well. Smart Meters by continuously monitoring and sending feedback of data to the customers. We will have a Android Application which is connected to the electric meter.

At the time of installation of the device, staff will generate a unique identification number for device. Staff will then embedded this number into the device and will also create a user account for the customer containing customer name, email, mobile number and address. The newly created device and user will be linked together. After successful installation of device and verification of the user details, customer will be provided with a password for checking status of their device with the help of email provided by the customer.

Now the device is ready to be used. User needs to recharge this device from a web app designed for this device in order to continue supply of electricity. This chapter also will discuss about the importance of the electricity. Discussions on the types of algorithm, advantages and limitations of each algorithm and programming software reviews are also included in this chapter. Further descriptions of the software tools required to develop the PEMS are also provided in this chapter.

Chapter 3 — Methodology: This chapter discusses the methodological development of this project, which includes the techniques used. Flowcharts of the software programming are included.

Even though this project just includes the software parts, but the best hardware selections are also discussed. The Visual Basic is fully used to complete this project in software developments parts. In addition, the Microsoft Office Access is used in this project to make the databases. Chapter 4 — Results and Discussions : This chapter displays the results of this project.

The tariff of energy was also explained. Chapter 5 — Conclusions and Recommendations : This chapter highlights the overall summary of this project based on the objectives and results. Problems and recommendations for future works to improve the project have also been discussed. In the software section, we will discuss about the software utilized to design the Prepaid Energy Meter System to control the amount of energy supply based only on the prepaid amount.

Most of these companies are still using postpaid system as their fee management. It is due to their current economic, social and politics [4]. Refer to the Latin language, Post means after, Pre means before, so a postpaid means paying after used while prepaid means pay before use [6].

Table 2. It clearly shows that electricity never stops running. Nevertheless, people should not waste electricity because no one can generate any current without energy. In addition, it can view the amount that has to pay after used it. There have two systems payments which are via postpaid or prepaid. Physically, energy is the measure of how much work that is required for a certain period of time or in simple words, energy is the capability to do the work.

In mathematically, energy is the product of frequency Hz and distance m. The unit of Energy is the Joule J. Next, energy consumption is equal to the power P. For its calculation, it is equal to the power P in Watts W times the number of usage hours per day t then the product divided by watts per kilowatt: 3 2.

Estimate the number of hours per day an appliance runs. In order to estimate the number of hours that a refrigerator actually operates at its maximum wattage, divide the total time the refrigerator is plugged in by three. It is functioning 24 hours actually.

Refrigerators, although turned "on" all the time, actually cycle on and off as needed to maintain interior temperatures. Find the wattage of the product - Stamped on the appliance The wattage of most appliances is usually stamped on the bottom or back of the appliance. Many appliances have a range of settings, so the actual amount of power an appliance may consume depends on the setting being used. For example, television brightness set at high brightness use more power.

A fan set at a higher speed uses more power than one set at a lower speed. Find the monthly energy consumption using the following formula: The energy E in kilowatt-hours kWh per day is equal to the power P in watts W times number of usage hours per day t divided by watts per kilowatt: 5 5.

Find the daily and monthly cost to run the appliance using the following formula: The electricity cost per day in Ringgit Malaysia RM is equal to the energy consumption E in kWh per day times the energy cost of 1 kWh; 6 The electricity cost per month in Ringgit Malaysia RM is equal to the energy consumption E in kWh per month times the energy cost of 1 kWh; 7 The excess electricity consumption can affect the cost that needs to pay.

Before use of the system, the consumer needs to pay up front. The same concept which is currently utilized by the mobile Top-up system which need to be reloaded for a certain amount, then the services are rendered based on the amount reloaded.

In addition, people can control and minimize the costs of electricity. A tariff is a tax imposed on the import or export of goods. In general parlance, however, it refers to "import duties" charged at the time goods are imported. They have the rights to make a cost per energy it gives. Figure 2. From the figure 2. Based on the amount, it means user were in the first kWh, which under rates of RM As an example, if assume every power to RM 0.

If the tariff is too high, thus cost will increase and cause losses to consumers. Generation Tariff is a set rate paid by the energy supplier for each unit kWh of electricity generated, either by using the electricity on-site or selling it back to the grid. One of two ways, the consumer will still be paid for every unit regardless [10]. Export Tariff works when consumers receive a further payment from the local energy supplier unit when they export unused electricity back to the electricity grid.

The export rate is same for all technologies. For Energy Bill Savings, consumers will be making savings on electricity bills as they generate their own electricity to use. This means that consumers will then be purchasing less power from energy supplier. This including management in cost, control energy and time. A DBMS can be described as a file manager that manages data in databases rather than files in file systems.

The DBMS uses similar concepts with the manual filing system. Due to security issues, only a limited number of users are given access privileges to access the data. The DBMS main objective is to manage user requests and requests from other programs. They do not need to understand the structure and storage algorithm of the database in order to access the data.

A database is an archive of records stored on a server computer in a systematic way. It can be anything from a simple shopping list to the large amounts of information in a corporate network. The column names in the table direct the query process in a similar manner where racks of cabinet in the library are given directive labels [12]. It is suitable for anything, whether for small projects or for large projects. It is a visual program. This makes it great for performing data entry, as you do not need to work with tables and spreadsheets.

It is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational with others program with a graphical user interface and software-development tools [13]. In this section, going to discuss about programming languages that used to implement the graphical user interface of the Prepaid Energy Meter System. Machine language is languages in the form of Binary Code, which can be only understood by computer, same as assembly language humans can only understand when a manual have.

However, High Level Language is the language that human understands [14]. In addition, this software is to express the program learning by the students on how to use visual basic. This software is easy-to-use and easy-to- learn. Under Truchard's leadership, National Instruments has pioneered the development of virtual instrumentation software and hardware that has revolutionized the way engineers approach measurement and automation applications [16].

The designed prepaid meter consists of an RFID reader, a microcontroller, a digital meter and a wireless gateway. An RFID reader is used to read the ID of the credit card and a PC connected to a hardware, simulated circuit which is designed and implemented to simulate the operation of the digital meter.

In the real system, this system is divided into two parts which are clients and server. RFID is used to read the tags which every tag have different memory in it and send information to the server to the next process [17]. The in house energy usage monitoring meter is usually a small device that can be used alongside the monitored device to monitor its energy usage and efficiency.

Energy usage meter for industrial use is usually a computer based monitoring system. It usually consists multiple sensors that can be used to monitor the multiple tools or machine simultaneously and feed the acquired data to a server computer trough computer network like a local area network LAN or wireless local area network WiFi.

This project has many advantages which can control and save money, more practical to be used for domestic consumers and directly save our time. DESCO is one of the companies which interested in this project and have been sponsor full financing of the project.

At the beginning of this production, BUET have supplied over single phase for the first time and followed by another single phase meters as requested.

Continuously, DESCO has been introducing a modern consumer friendly prepaid metering system for valued consumers of the capital. For future work and addition, improvements, change in the Smart Tag concept which wireless transaction that can connect at least 25 feet from readers.

As the present work, for the better costs and maintenance, less wire is very suitable to apply to prepaid meter. From the theories learned before, the length of the wire are corresponding to the current list. It is because, the longer the wires the bigger the current loss. The prepaid meters in the market today are coming up with smart cards to hold information on units consumed or equivalent money value.

When the card is inserted, the energy meter reads it, connects the supply to the consumer loads, and debits the value. The meters are equipped with light emitting diodes LED to inform consumers when 75 percent of the credit energy has been consumed. Other than that, for the software parts, nowadays have a lot of new software that can be used to make a good GUI and database.

The GUI is good to apply in order to make clear the system when use and more practical to be used. The most parts in the prepaid meter are database. Database is the systems which keep the input data to store and with it, it can make a connection between software and hardware parts to make a transaction. Microsoft Office Access is the medium to make a database which is free. Hopefully, Malaysian population can be more appreciated and to increase their awareness towards the total amount of energy that they use.

In order to save our money, it can probably help us to minimize the total electric bills and outstanding debts. Moreover, it can help people to manage their time smoothly. After the project title has been given, the early planning is to determine the objective of this energy optimization project. This project is carried out in two semesters with the main focus on how to optimize the prepaid energy for consumers.

This project is carried out to determine on how to use to generate a prepaid energy meter system for usage of electricity for all areas.

For FYP 1, student must submit three chapters introduction, literature review and methodology and other chapters will be submitted during FYP 2. Project development tools for interfaces and database application are widely available on the PC system and only using a local database. Selecting the appropriate software is very essential to ensure the development process is completed in the designated time frame.

Those features are greatly facilitating our development work and enrich our programming experience. These tools are mostly open source and relatively easy to set up. The details of the developer tools used in this project will be explained in the following section. Before starting whatever work to do, the concept of PDCA must be taken.

PDCA concept had been used by the entire engineer and project manager in order to complete their project efficiently before handover to the customers. PDCA can only be applied after getting the project title. The project started by some planning and implemented in a Gantt chart. It is important that the work is done accordingly to the schedule. Action was taken to make sure the project runs smoothly. It is starting to gather information about Energy System and Prepaid System to analyze how the system works.

Then it is followed by understanding the characteristics of Prepaid Energy System. Next, identify and clarify the optimization method that can be used in the PEMS.

After analyzing the data, continue by doing the programming of the system and the interfaces. After doing it, check the error mistakes and determine the result of the PEMS. Plan the concept of the system design. After coming out with the problem assessment regarding the system, need to add knowledge acquisition and analyze. After making sure the ideal result that will be reviewed, the fuel systems are ready to design and implement. It is needed for testing, but if have the error, the system need to do some modification.

The energy meter supplies pulses to the microcontroller for every unit of energy consumed. The microcontroller increases the spent energy unit by one and decreases the balance amount in the EEPROM by the fixed tariff.

As soon as the balance amount in the EEPROM comes down to zero, the microcontroller sends a signal to the relay driver which in turn switches off the relay, such that the main supply to the load is switched off. An LCD is also interfaced to the microcontroller which displays the amount of energy consumed.

The Microcontroller reads the balance amount and stores it along with the tariff and the energy units allocated in its RAM and is programmed to delete off the information present in the EEPROM making the card invalid for further use. The energy meter gives an electric signal to the optoisolator which consists of an LED and an Opto-transistor combination such that the LED glows and emits light for every electric signal received by the energy meter which sends an electric signal for every unit consumed.

The Opto-transistor starts conducting and sends high and low pulses to the microcontroller. The microcontroller is programmed such that a counter is kept incrementing for every pulse rate, which gives the value of the energy consumed.

Another EEPROM is interfaced to the microcontroller where the balanced amount and the energy units consumed are stored.

Finally, when the balance amount is zero, the microcontroller sends a low signal to the Relay driver to give a high signal at its output, which switches off the relay. Normally the microcontroller gives a high signal to the input pin of the relay driver, which develops a logic low signal at its corresponding output pin and the relay coil is energized, thus connecting the load to the main supply.

It is a 3 in 1 dual source meter. It also monitors water and gas consumption along with electrical consumption. All the consumer has to do is to display the card in the front panel of the meter for a time of 3 seconds.

The microcontroller stores the number of units allocated and measures the energy consumed. This system automatically switches off the power supply once purchased units are used up. Its applications include shopping malls, residential townships, commercial buildings, employee quarters etc.