Development Of A Smart Electrical Energy Meter For Controlling Power Consumption

D.O. Oloruntoba; O.A. Komolafe

D.O. Oloruntoba Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
O.A. Komolafe Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Keywords: Smart meter, Hall-Effect, Arduino, Threshold, Energy, Etching

Abstract

Smart meters being the state of the art in electrical energy metering possess a huge potential of being tools for better consumer side energy management. The aim of this work is to develop a smart meter capable of regulating power consumption via a priority-based load control system. Supply voltage and load current at the constituent units of the smart meter are measured with transformer-based voltage sensors and ACS-712 hall-effect current sensors interfaced to an ATmega32 microcontroller on-board an Arduino Nano development board. Software is developed with the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE) and programmed into the microcntroller to consistently compare the instantaneous power being consumed by the connected loads to a user defined threshold. The software also facilitates power consumption level regulation by controlling the loads in order of priority via relays while performing other standard smart meter functions. The development of the meter involved circuit design and simulation with Proteus, printed circuit board (PCB) development with PCB Wizard, PCB construction using the wet etching method on standard copper clad board (CCB) and assembly of the units of the smart meter in appropriate casing. The voltage and current response of the smart meter was tested and its output was compared to those of a standard voltmeter and ammeter, its ability to regulate loads to maintain specified power thresholds while being remotely monitored was also verified in the laboratory.

Author Biographies

D.O. Oloruntoba, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering,

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

O.A. Komolafe, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering,

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

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