(IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications,

Vol. 9, No. 5, 2018

Modeling of Arduino-based Prepaid Energy Meter

using GSM Technology
Uzair Ahmed Rajput1
Khalid Rafique2
Department of Electrical Engineering
Director General Information Technology Board
QUEST Nawabshah Sindh Pakistan
Azad Jammu & Kashmir

Abdul Sattar Saand3, Mujtaba Shaikh4, Muhammad Tarique5

Department of Electrical Engineering
QUEST Nawabshah, Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract—It is realized that one of the defective subsystems voltage, current and power also but electromechanical energy
adding to the tremendous budgetary loss in Power Supply meters can only measure active power. Digital meters measure
Company is the conventional metering and charging framework. energy usage by highly integrated circuits, by capitalizing the
Mistakes get presented at each phase of charging the energy voltage and current that gives the instantaneous power in watts.
rates, similar to blunders with conventional meters, reading Digital meters show usage of electricity in digits on a liquid
errors by human while noticing the consumed energy; and crystal display and those meters are highly accurate,
blunder during the preparation of paid and the due bills. The inexpensive, theft reluctant, etc.
solution for this downside is a prepaid charging or billing
framework of consumed energy. Most of the developing countries This work is intended to gather the information about the
are shifting their conventional energy management practices to data which is consumed energy of a specific user or consumer
the modern one by replacing the old and conventional energy through a wireless communication system (not required to visit
meters with the smart meters outfitted with the prepaid facility consumer premises), and the system is called as AMR
to quantify the power consumption so as to decrease the income (Automatic Meter Reading). The AMR system is proposed to
deficits looked by utilities because of customer unwillingness to remotely accumulate the meter readings of a locale using a
make consumed energy payments on time. Our proposed design relating remote wireless system without individuals physically
embedded with Arduino and GSM technology is advancement going to and taking note of the readings of the meters [1].
over conventional energy meter, which enables consumer to
effectively manage their electricity usage. The system II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
performance is good with the acquired results. An earlier
charging will undoubtedly get rid of the issues of unpaid bills and As we mentioned above several advantages of digital
human mistakes in meter readings, along these lines energy meters, but always there are chances of innovation or
guaranteeing justified income for the utility. modification in different instruments for ease of consumer and
supplier. Following are some problems observed in those
Keywords—Arduino; energy meter; smart meters; RFID; GSM energy meters which should be rectified:
I. INTRODUCTION  Meter reading and other related tasks like bill payment
are performed by a large number of staff i.e., large
Electric energy consumed by the power devices is
number of employees are required.
measured by a gadget known as an energy meter. Since 1980s,
the energy meter’s journey started. When there were large  An expansive number of staff is utilized for meter
energy meters which have been made with lots of innovations reading and other related assignments like bill payment.
in energy meters to reduce its size and also the weight.
Particularly, enhancement in accuracy, specifications and  Billing errors due to carelessness of meter readers
features of energy meters has been a topic of discussion. during meter reading and sometime billing estimation.

In Pakistan, electromechanical energy meters were used  Consumer has to stand in queue for hours for bill
for a long time. These meters work by checking and figuring payment.
the quantity of turns of an electrically directing metal plate  Careless usage of electricity by consumer who is
which is made to rotate at a speed in respect to the power unaware of its cost.
experiencing the meter. Those electromechanical energy
meters are being supplanted by the newly digitized meters due  Consumers are not bound to pay bill on time.
to different problems like there is no way to upgrade those
energy meters, its accuracy was limited and those meters were III. HYPOTHESIS
easy to manipulate because direction of revolving disc can be As a solution of above mentioned problems, “prepaid
easily reversed. Nowadays, digital energy meters can measure energy meters” are being introduced. As per a current report

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 (IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications,
Vol. 9, No. 5, 2018

from Navigant Research, the overall introduced base of prepaid VI. PROPOSED SYSTEM
meters is required to add up to more than 85 million from 2014
to 2024 [2]. A. Benefits of the Proposed System
There are many benefits for customer as well as for
IV. EXISTING PREPAID SYSTEM supplier of this project:
 Smart Card Based Prepaid Energy Meters
 Pay according to your current income situation.
In this type of prepaid energy meter, there are two main
components; one is smart card and another one is smart card  Reduce electricity consuming when income is tight.
reader. Smart card is like credit cards made of plastic and it  No billing errors.
consists of different components like CPU, ROM, EEPROM,
etc. so basically integrated circuit is embedded on a smart card  No debt money.
[3]. There is a whole smart card operating system through  No need of extra staff for meter reading.
which data is controlled of a smart card. In this kind of scheme,
the consumer must recharge his card as much number of units  Customer will be responsible for disconnections.
he wants. Later, that card is inserted into card reader which is
embedded with energy meter like a whole package. B. System architecture (B.D & B.D Description)
Afterwards, card reader does its work and stores the units
which are available in smart card, energy meter reduces the
units as much electricity is being consumed. When unit reaches
to zero, it disconnects the electricity until recharge.
 Smart meters (prepaid meters) with GSM technology.
 In this sort of scheme, a message is sent to smart meters
via GSM network by the consumers after recharging
their cell phone account. As much amount (rupees) is
sent to energy meter, it purchases number of units and
those units are stored in energy meter. As consumer use
electricity units are reduced by energy meter and when
the purchased units are exhausted electricity is cut-off.
When next recharge is sent over to energy meter, it
recognizes the mobile number and decodes message,
add number of units in its storage so as electricity is
restored [4].
V. RFID BASED SMART METER
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is a programmed Fig. 1. Layout of prepaid energy meter.
recognizable proof strategy, depending on putting away and
remotely recovering information utilizing gadgets called RFID This layout of Fig. 1 yields the idea behind prepaid energy
tags or also known as transponders. The development requires meter scheme. It shows different hardware components
some level of the coordinated effort of a RFID reader and the incorporated, their connections and the data flowing in this
tag. A RFID tag is associated with or melded into a thing, scheme. In this layout, the energy meter is supplied by the
animal, or a person with the true objective of recognizable service provider (WAPDA) and supplying the energy to the
proof and following using radio waves. A few tags can be read load through an electromechanical relay, which operates under
from a few meters away and past the line of sight (LOS) of the certain conditions. Energy meter is also connected to the
reader [5]. Arduino UNO in order to obtain the objective of automatic
Following this strategy, the individuals utilize the RFID measuring the consumed energy and to perform the suitable
cards issued by the power providers. The energy could be action depends upon the current units available. Arduino UNO
purchased by recharging the novel RFID cards while utilizing is additionally associated with the GSM Module for sending or
the code in the card. At the point, when the buyer needs to receiving the SMS to the client for the status of their
utilize the electricity, he needs to demonstrate the card to the connection and to recharge the energy meter if it is required to
reader, at that point the one of a kind code inside the card is do so. LCD is connected to the Arduino UNO board to display
perceived by the reader, and begins deducting the RFID card the current status of the connection so the costumer remains in
amount according to the quantized unit charge. After utilization touch with the information about the load and their purchased
of whole amount, the consumer needs to recharge the RFID units [6].
card again [5].

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 (IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications,
Vol. 9, No. 5, 2018

D. Methodology module. All ground pins GND are connected together. For
The entire Circuit diagram has been shown below in Fig. 2. switching purpose (ON/OFF) to supply a relay is being used.
The power is measured by the energy meter with respect to We cannot connect Arduino directly with relay because as
time and is calculated by multiplication of voltage and current Arduino has ATMEGA328P processor and its pins can supply
signals. The IC of energy meter generates pulses according to roughly 25mA, Processor pins have large effective resistance
real power utilization. This energy meter calculates 1KWh for and a high voltage will "drop" as increasing current is drawn
3200 impulses, so rated as 3200imp/KWh, and there will be and a low voltage will rise as load increases. Pins may be
blinking of an LED for its every pulse. An Optocoupler has specific with a maximum short circuit current but at that point
been connected to this LED so Optocoupler will be switched a high pin will be pulled low and a low pin will be pulled high
whenever LED blinks. We cannot directly connect energy so short circuit current has limited applicability. So, relay is
meter’s LED with Arduino because LED possesses analogue connected with Arduino through ULN2003 IC or relay driver,
signals while we are feeding Arduino on the digital side. The ON/OFF instructions are sent over to relay driver by Arduino
pin number(D8) of Arduino is attached to the switching side of and it can turn ON/OFF relay. LCD is also interfaced with
an Optocoupler for detecting pulses coming from energy meter. Arduino digital pins (7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2) on which we can see how
When a pulse occurs from energy meter, optocoupler is much units are purchased, remaining units and balance, etc.
switched, pin D8 of Arduino detects a digital 0, otherwise it is [7]. Fig. 3 shows the flow diagram of processes involved in
not active and is in undefined state. There will be a count 1 to a prepaid energy meter scheme.
data when there will be change on the state of the pin from E. Circuit Diagram
digital 1 to 0. We have interfaced GSM module with Arduino
UNO. The data communication pins are RX and TX, See Fig. 2 below.
Arduino’s RX pin is connected with GSM module’s TX pin F. Work flow
and vice-versa. Before connecting GSM module with Arduino, See Fig. 3 below.
a valid SIM card must be installed in SIM card port of GSM

Fig. 2. Circuit diagram of prepaid energy meter.

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 (IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications,
Vol. 9, No. 5, 2018

Fig. 3. Flow diagram of processes involved in prepaid energy meter scheme

When there is no balance in energy meter as it would be at

initial state or it can be when all the purchased units are
consumed, the microcontroller will display zero units and zero
balance as shown in Fig. 4. At the same time, it will inform the
customer regarding no balance by sending an SMS through
GSM module as shown in Fig. 5.
 When customer recharge some amount to the energy
meter (Fig. 6)

Fig. 4. Display zero units and zero balance.

Fig. 6. When customer recharge some amount to the Energy Meter.

Fig. 5. No balance by sending an SMS through GSM module.

Fig. 7. Show credit.

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 (IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications,
Vol. 9, No. 5, 2018

the status of their connection as shown in Fig. 9 and 10,

respectively.
VII. CONCLUSION
The advancement in power distribution system is non-stop
process and new technology is always in progress. In this
paper, an Arduino and a GSM based smart prepaid energy
meter has been proposed. Units are purchased by using GSM
technology and those units are deduced according to electricity
usage. This project presents a single-phase energy meter for
domestic consumers with prepayment billing method. The
Fig. 8. An SMS is sent back to the customer.
significant preferred standpoint is the capacity of this system to
When the customer recharges a certain amount by sending update the current conventional meters into smart prepaid
a message to the GSM module, it delivers that specific data to meters with a connection of Arduino and GSM (Prepaid
the microcontroller (i.e. Arduino UNO) so it can decode it and Module). This kills the need of totally supplant the energy
fetch the amount that customer wants to recharge his account. meters. Cost is the main important factor of this work which is
The recharged amount is displayed on LCD which is shown in quite high but will reduce from 3 to 4 times after
Fig. 7. implementation of this project. Nowadays as power supply
companies need labour for meter reading after implementing
After a certain process the microcontroller commands to this, there will be no need of so many meter readers and lots of
connect the load to the supply as the balance in customer’s money will be saved.
account is sufficient to get the connection back, for this regard
an SMS is sent back to the customer to inform him that their The idea of prepayment electricity bill prior its usage is
connection is restored as shown in Fig. 8. being gradually accepted around the world, and that’s why the
market for prepaid energy metering is growing. After having
 When energy meter cut off the load due to insufficient many advantages, this project still needs more safety check and
balance (Fig. 9) modification especially the GSM module for the network
coverage of SIM which is being used, should be strong so that
the GSM can work properly.
REFERENCES
[1] Dike, Damian O., et al. "Minimizing household electricity theft in
Nigeria using GSM based prepaid meter." American Journal of
Engineering Research (AJER) 1 (2015): 2320-0936.
Fig. 9. When energy meter cut off the load due to insufficient balance. [2] https://www.navigantresearch.com/newsroom/prepaid-electric-meters-
areexpected-to-have-an-installed-base-of-more-than-85-million-from-
2014-to-2024
[3] M. W. Raad, T. Sheltami2 and M. Sallout, "A SMART CARD BASED
PREPAID ELECTRICITY SYSTEM," in Pervasive Computing and
Applications, 2007. ICPCA 2007. 2nd International Conference,
Birmingham, 2007
[4] Omijeh, B. O., and G. I. Ighalo. "Modeling of gsm-based energy
recharge scheme for prepaid meter." IOSR Journal of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering 4.1 (2013): 46-53.
Fig. 10. SMS to inform the customer regarding the status of their connection.
[5] R. Teymourzadeh, M. I. S and A. J. A. Abueida, "RFID-BASED Prepaid
Power Meter," in 2013 IEEE Student Conference on Research and
The customer is bound to use as much amount of electrical Development (SCOReD, Putrajaya, 2013.
energy as the balance he has in his account. As the balance in [6] Sheelasobanarani, Dr K., et al. "A Prepaid Energy Meter for Efficient
his account reaches zero value then it becomes insufficient to Power Management." International Journal of Emerging Technology
continue the electric supply to the load; that is why the and Advanced Engineering 4.3 (2014): 593-595.
microcontroller commands to disconnect the load from supply. [7] Rodrigo, W. D. A. S., et al. "A prepaid energy meter using GPRS/GSM
A message about this disconnection of load is displayed on Technology for improved metering and billing." International Journal of
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LCD and also sent by SMS to inform the customer regarding (2016)

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