17-07-2012, 11:29 AM
wireless communication for energy meter reading
[attachment=27791]
INTODUCTION
Even after closing all the doors of theft and tampering of the electricity by taking number of measures such as introduction of electronic meters, the cost of electricity is still rising. This is due to the lack of professionalism in handling the distribution and measuring system and generous administrative expenses. Present energy meter reading is a tedious and an expensive affair as a number of meter readers has to go and take the reading manually (from the consumer’s house) to issue the bill, which will later be entered in the software to automate the billing and payment system. Moreover the chance of tampering the reading details and not reporting the theft attempts are very common. Another major disadvantage with the existing system is that if one electronic energy meter breaks down, the office will come to know only after two or even more months depending on the liability of the person who is going to take the reading of consumer, to repair or replace the damaged meter. This paper proposes a network communication system for energy meter reading by integrating communication technology and software system with the existing meters, which is expected to reduce both electricity measuring and administrative expenses drastically.
ELECTRO MECHANICAL TYPE ENRGY METER
An energy meter is a device used to measure the amount of energy supplied to a particular load. Most commonly energy is measured in Kilowatt Hours (KWH). The present energy billing system in India uses both electromechanical energy meters and digital energy meters. The most traditional and widely used energy meter is the electromechanical energy meter. This energy meter works on the principle of electro-mechanical induction explained further below. Figure 1 shows an electromechanical meter.
DIGITAL ENERGY METER
Another way to measure electricity is with a digital energy meter. Figure 2 shows a block diagram of digital energy meter. In Figure 2 the alternating current (AC) is supplied through the current transformer (CT) and the potential transformer (PT) so that any sudden changes in the voltage and currents will not affect the energy meter. These transformers also step down the voltage and the current to circuit levels. The output of the CT and PT is supplied to Energy Meter IC which generates the pulses according to the energy supplied to it. The pulse output of the Energy Meter IC is supplied to the microcontrollers counter pin so that the microcontroller can count the number of pulses and calculate the energy supplied to the consumer. Software burned on to the microcontroller performs the usage calculations (Loss, 1998). The LCD display is used to display the number of units consumed by the consumer. The digital energy meter has solved many of the problems with Electro-Mechanical Energy Meter. The major disadvantage of the digital energy meter is that it does not address the billing which is a labour consuming process.
PROPOSED SYSTEM
Proposed system is illustrated in the Figure 3, which has three main modules, Consumer’s Automatic Electronic Energy Meter (AEEM), Communication System, and a Base Station. Before elaborating further on the proposed protocol, the notations used in this model are defined below. AEEM are used to measure the supply or usage of the electricity. The EEM is embedded with Automatic Communication Device (ACD), which can be relying on both wired and/or wireless technology. Since AEEM is a combination of two independent modules, breakdown of one will not affect the working of other. If the energy meter breaks down, no signal will be received by ACD, and this error will be reported to the base station; and if ACD breaks down, no signal will be received by the base station, and their software will report for urgent repair.
Advanced Metering Central Computer (AMCC)
Horizon Utilities' smart meter read schedules are maintained by our AMCC, located in the Customer Connections Department at our John Street of office. The AMCC sends daily messages to the collector units to communicate all of the reads for its meters via the WAN. The system reads all residential meters each night, and obtains a demand read for commercial customers once per month. The WAN gathers data from all of our collectors, which are strategically located throughout the city. WAN options that we researched as part of our Smart Meter Pilot Project included: cable networks, wireless modems, Wi-Fi and bre optics. After carefully assessing and testing each option, we decided to use wireless modems as our WAN technology.
[attachment=27791]
INTODUCTION
Even after closing all the doors of theft and tampering of the electricity by taking number of measures such as introduction of electronic meters, the cost of electricity is still rising. This is due to the lack of professionalism in handling the distribution and measuring system and generous administrative expenses. Present energy meter reading is a tedious and an expensive affair as a number of meter readers has to go and take the reading manually (from the consumer’s house) to issue the bill, which will later be entered in the software to automate the billing and payment system. Moreover the chance of tampering the reading details and not reporting the theft attempts are very common. Another major disadvantage with the existing system is that if one electronic energy meter breaks down, the office will come to know only after two or even more months depending on the liability of the person who is going to take the reading of consumer, to repair or replace the damaged meter. This paper proposes a network communication system for energy meter reading by integrating communication technology and software system with the existing meters, which is expected to reduce both electricity measuring and administrative expenses drastically.
ELECTRO MECHANICAL TYPE ENRGY METER
An energy meter is a device used to measure the amount of energy supplied to a particular load. Most commonly energy is measured in Kilowatt Hours (KWH). The present energy billing system in India uses both electromechanical energy meters and digital energy meters. The most traditional and widely used energy meter is the electromechanical energy meter. This energy meter works on the principle of electro-mechanical induction explained further below. Figure 1 shows an electromechanical meter.
DIGITAL ENERGY METER
Another way to measure electricity is with a digital energy meter. Figure 2 shows a block diagram of digital energy meter. In Figure 2 the alternating current (AC) is supplied through the current transformer (CT) and the potential transformer (PT) so that any sudden changes in the voltage and currents will not affect the energy meter. These transformers also step down the voltage and the current to circuit levels. The output of the CT and PT is supplied to Energy Meter IC which generates the pulses according to the energy supplied to it. The pulse output of the Energy Meter IC is supplied to the microcontrollers counter pin so that the microcontroller can count the number of pulses and calculate the energy supplied to the consumer. Software burned on to the microcontroller performs the usage calculations (Loss, 1998). The LCD display is used to display the number of units consumed by the consumer. The digital energy meter has solved many of the problems with Electro-Mechanical Energy Meter. The major disadvantage of the digital energy meter is that it does not address the billing which is a labour consuming process.
PROPOSED SYSTEM
Proposed system is illustrated in the Figure 3, which has three main modules, Consumer’s Automatic Electronic Energy Meter (AEEM), Communication System, and a Base Station. Before elaborating further on the proposed protocol, the notations used in this model are defined below. AEEM are used to measure the supply or usage of the electricity. The EEM is embedded with Automatic Communication Device (ACD), which can be relying on both wired and/or wireless technology. Since AEEM is a combination of two independent modules, breakdown of one will not affect the working of other. If the energy meter breaks down, no signal will be received by ACD, and this error will be reported to the base station; and if ACD breaks down, no signal will be received by the base station, and their software will report for urgent repair.
Advanced Metering Central Computer (AMCC)
Horizon Utilities' smart meter read schedules are maintained by our AMCC, located in the Customer Connections Department at our John Street of office. The AMCC sends daily messages to the collector units to communicate all of the reads for its meters via the WAN. The system reads all residential meters each night, and obtains a demand read for commercial customers once per month. The WAN gathers data from all of our collectors, which are strategically located throughout the city. WAN options that we researched as part of our Smart Meter Pilot Project included: cable networks, wireless modems, Wi-Fi and bre optics. After carefully assessing and testing each option, we decided to use wireless modems as our WAN technology.