Construction of an Arduino Based Smart Energy Meter

Abstract

The design of a smart energy meter with an arduino that measures the current, voltage, energy and power by an individual or small organization is very important. Electricity is among the basic requirements for the maintenance of life contents. But in our country, we have many localities where they have constant electricity and others with little or no access to electricity. Consumers are dissatisfied with the services been provided by the electricity company, and the absurdity in monthly bills are the most common source of displeasure. The issue of having outrageous bills despite the lack of electricity, the ignorance of how much voltage and current is being used in homes led to this creation of this project. This focuses on the system’s problem which entails workforce, time consumption and manipulations of readings by an official authority while producing the bill to the consumer. This project consists of the following components Energy Meter, Arduino DANO Board, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) Module, Capacitor, Mobile Phone, Load, Current sensor acs712, Voltage sensor, Transformer, Vero Board, and liquid crystal display (LCD). The energy meter continually monitors the readings and the Arduino processes this data and the readings are uploaded on the liquid crystal display (LCD) of the device and when the readings are taken the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) module posts the readings to the thingspeak on the mobile phone. The constructed device displayed the energy, power, current and voltage been consumed with varying loads used and the readings were uploaded on the platform used (thingspeak). The results shows that at 153 W it was at its highest point and at 132 W it was at the lowest point when plotted with time. From the results, it shows that the device is working perfectly. There was fluctuation in the power, voltage and currents but constant increase in the energy. Asides from the saving of cost in relation to remote reading of meters, it is hoped that implementation will encourage energy efficiency and raise awareness of energy consumption and demand side participation in the national energy market. This project is recommended for the electricity power company (PHCN) and it is also recommended for individuals that reside in some localities because it would help save cost and it is convenient.