Asian Journal of Electrical Sciences

ISSN: 2249-6297, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2019, pp. 1-4

© The Research Publication, www.trp.org.in

Design and Implementation of IoT Energy Meter to Monitor

Energy Flow at the Consumer End
Dakka. Obulesu1, K. S. V. Phani Kumar2 and V. Mahesh3
1
Associate Professor, 2Assistant Professor, 3M. Tech Alumnus
1,2&3
Department of EEE, CVR College of Engineering, Hyderabad, India
E-Mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract - This paper presents a device that uses the evolving calculate the bill amount. To carry out this procedure, at
IoT technology to design and implement an internet-based least one member of the household should be present at
energy meter. This meter, being cheap and easy-to-implement home when the person arrives, which is bothersome for
solution, enables consumers to monitor the daily usage of consumers because running errands or going about their
electric power easily. This work primarily concerns the
personal and professional works get affected since one
energy-monitoring aspect of IoT, along with discussing other
advantages of this meter, such as its ability to overcome human cannot predict the arrival of the electricity board personnel.
errors and reducing dependency on manual labor, besides Moreover, an unknown person entering the house for
reducing costs in energy consumption. The proposed design, power-reading purposes might also act like an invasion of
which comprises a low-cost wireless network and protocol for one’s privacy.
smart energy along with a web application capable of
automatically reading the unit and then sending the data In India, electricity bills are generally issued either monthly
automatically provides great advantages to users by allowing or bimonthly. Even in this digital era, consumers remain
them to keep a track of their meter reading. This system will generally unaware about their energy consumption and do
help users by allowing them to not only take steps to reduce
not take the pain to check the meter reading and compare it
power wastage but also bring down costs of consumption,
along with minimizing the threat of power theft, which is with the previous reading to obtain a fair idea about their
incurs great losses to power companies. Experimental results consumption patterns. Moreover, this entire procedure
of this study show that the proposed IoT meter works needs to be repeated several times a month to efficiently
efficiently and has proven its potential in practical applications monitor and control energy usage, which becomes pretty
at substantially reduced costs. cumbersome. However, if consumers were instead given the
Keywords: Smart Energy Meter, Cost Saving, Data Privacy, means to check their energy consumption using their mobile
IoT phones or laptops, it would not only become quick and
efficient but also indicate a great advancement in the field
I. INTRODUCTION of energy management. Since most people are usually
online almost 24*7 nowadays, allowing them to monitor
Electricity, which is the driving force behind the their energy consumption online from anywhere will be
development of any country, is currently a global concern in quite helpful.
the form of energy crisis. Although an increase in energy
production might seem like the answer to this problem, the II. RELATED RESEARCH AND MOTIVATION
actual remedy lies in the effective use of available energy.
This might be made possible by a system that can The work by Win Hlaing and Somachai (2017) deals with
effectively control and monitor power usage. One of the wired home automation systems. Some studies have even
ideal approaches to addressing this current energy crisis is proposed a system that uses a remote to control water
through reduced power usage at the household level. temperature through transmission control protocol and
Efficient energy monitoring is required for achieving this internet protocol (TCP/IP). Although this has a lower
reduction in power usage. Even in this digital age, hardware cost, it ends up affecting both the build and
consumers are not aware of their real-time energy maintenance costs.
consumption until the electricity bills are issued, and even
in these technologically advanced times, labor-intensive Brasek C. et al., [1] proposed a new AMR scheme using
work still continues. Analogue energy meters, which were WiFi technology and an ARM-based PMWCM scheme.
used decades back, are insensitive to minute power changes, They suggested both economical and effective ways of
and the values generated by them are not exactly accurate, implementing an AMR system, which helped save costs in
leading to inaccurate reading and hence to the imprecise not just pre-building communication network but also in
generation of bills. Although digital watt meters, which cable maintenance. This leads to sharing of broadband
sample the voltage and current thousand times a second, wireless network resources along with remote real-time
have helped resolve these issues, an employee from the management of the user's power data, helping save resource
electricity board still has to make a monthly visit to each costs.
house to note down the power reading and to accordingly

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Dakka. Obulesu, K. S. V. Phani Kumar and V. Mahesh

B. S. Koay [2] proposed a design of a Bluetooth-enabled of their meter reading. This system will help users by
energy meter that can read energy meters wirelessly. Two allowing them to not only take steps to reduce power
features were proposed, namely, the automatic meter wastage but also bring down costs of consumption, along
reading (AMR) and the automatic polling mechanism with minimizing the threat of power theft, which is incurs
(APM), that will help retrieve the meter reading with little great losses to power companies. The system has three
human intervention, and these were implemented in the components, namely, the digital energy meter, the ESP8266
targeted applications. The design is based on the CSR WiFi module, and web application. The ESP8266 WiFi
Bluetooth module as well as the analog device ADE7756 module is embedded into the meter, and the TCP/IP
energy meter. protocol is employed to allow seamless communication
between the meter and the web application.
Li Li, Xiaoguan Hu, Jian Huang, and Ketai [3] proposed a
new scheme, which combines WiFi and WIMAX with III. HARDWARE MODEL
current various communication forms of AMR, based on
analyzing the differences of specific environments. This The block diagram of the hardware design of independent
scheme, which aids the development of AMR, provides a modules is represented in Fig.1.
good solution and a meaningful exploration.

Qazi Mamoon Ashraf et al., [4] implemented a prototype

capable of acquiring energy-related data after a few seconds
that allows the study of energy consumption patterns. The
device was termed the ELIVE device. The ATMEGA328
microcontroller worked in harmony with an ESP8266 WiFi
system-on-chip (SoC) module, an AC transformer, as well
as current transducers. The ESP8266 allowed easy
connection to the Internet for the microprocessor with the
use of an established WiFi connection based on serial
interfacing requirements. Arduino Integrated Development
Environment (IDE) was used to program the
microcontroller that obtained energy measurements using an
analog to digital converter (ADC).

Qiang Fu et al., [5] discussed microgrids, which are

currently receiving quite some attention, due to the ever-
increasing need to enable distributed generation, ensure
power quality, and provide energy surety with regard to
critical load. Hence, they analyzed a high renewable-energy
penetrated micro-grid.

This paper provides a way out of these above-mentioned

difficulties caused by the previous mechanisms of
measuring power. Wireless communication technology has Fig. 1 Block diagram of the IoT Energy Meter
made the exchange of information fast, secure and accurate.
With the help of this technology, many of the industrial The primary blocks of this hardware are the WiFi module
aspects of energy management can be automated, which (ESP8266), the opto coupler (MCT-2E), the single-phase
will ultimately lead to the reduced usage of manpower. energy meter, an LED, an AC to DC converter, a single-
phase AC supply, regulated power supply, and load. The
Mismanagement of electrical energy is a prevalent problem ESP8266 WiFi module is a self-contained SOC possessing
in today's world. The only way to overcome this crippling an integrated TCP/IP protocol stack. The ESP8266, which is
drawback in electricity distribution is to develop an a small WiFi module built around the ESP8266 chip that
effective monitoring system. This paper proposes an can wirelessly connect a microcontroller to the Internet, can
integrated hardware and software solution that enables provide any microcontroller access to a WiFi network at
wireless monitoring of energy consumption to make it more minimal cost. The rapidly growing popularity of ESP8266,
convenient for the end user. launched in 2014, can be proven from the fact that even
though there is only one ESP8266 processor, it is found on
In this paper, the proposed design, which comprises a low- many different breakout boards, which differ in terms of
cost wireless network and protocol for smart energy – along both which pins are exposed and in the size of the flash
with a web application capable of automatically reading the memory. Over time, these breakout boards have also
unit and then sending the data automatically – provides evolved rapidly, proving themselves ideal in this IoT era.
great advantages to users by allowing them to keep a track The ESP8266 – a low-cost WiFi module that can be

AJES Vol.8 No.2 April-June 2019 2

 Design and Implementation of IoT Energy Meter to Monitor Energy Flow at the Consumer End

integrated easily into IoT devices – features powerful on- code. On a WiFi ESP 8266 serial monitor, the unit and cost
board processing and storage capability that allows it to be of energy consumed are shown in Fig.3.Consumers have
integrated with the sensors and other application-specific the ease of obtaining energy consumption information just
devices by means of its general purpose input/output by filling in the login details online, anytime and
(GPIO) with minimal upfront development and loading anywhere, made possible by using WiFi communication
during runtime. Its high degree of on-chip integration leads technology called IoT. This information could be viewed
to its minimal external circuitry, including the front-end by both consumers and utility. Fig. 3 shows the web
module, which is designed in such a way that it occupies a information regarding unit and cost of electrical energy
very small PCB area. The ESP8266 supports automatic consumption.
power save delivery (APSD) for voice over IP (VoIP)
applications along with Bluetooth coexistence interfaces. Its
self-calibrated RF, which allows it to work under all
operating conditions, makes it possible to mitigate the need
for any external RF parts.

The ESP8266 module – powered by a 3.3V regulated power

supply – has a maximum voltage input rating of 3.3V, and
thus voltages greater than 3.7V would damage the module,
making it important to be extremely cautions regarding the
same. When connecting the ESP8266 to the power supply,
the Vcc and ground pins should be connected to the power
supply lines and the power supply’s ground line needs to be Fig. 2 Output when supply is given
connected to Arduino’s ground pin. Because the Arduino is
powered via USB connection to the laptop, a common
ground needs to be created for common reference to
compare voltages and thereby interpret digital high and low
signals.
.
Second, it is important to connect the output of a resistor
voltage-divider circuit to the receive (RX) line for the
ESP8266 module so as to transit the serial communication
logic level (the highs and lows of the digital signals that
make up the serial communications) from a logic high of 5
volts on the Arduino to a logic high of 3.3V on the ESP8266
module. Since the ESP8266 has a maximum voltage input
rating of 3.3V, connecting the module’s receive line directly
to Arduino’s transmit line might result in critical damage.
However, since the module’s 3.3V logic high is high Fig. 3 Web information regarding unit and cost of
enough to also register as a logic high on Arduino, the electrical energy consumption
ESP8266’s transmit line levels do not need shifting. After
V.CONCLUSION
completing all the hardware connections, the program
should be uploaded to Arduino. The program will copy
This paper presented an overview of the smart energy meter
commands typed into the serial monitor and will send them
for IoT along with a low-cost implementation process,
to ESP8266. The responses from the ESP8266 will be
which is very efficient and accurate in energy measurement.
displayed in the serial monitor window.
The proposed energy meter can overcome challenges
associated with the efficient management of energy. Our
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
developed meter allows one to read its parameters – load
profile, demand value, and the total energy consumption –
This paper presents an overview of the wireless energy
correctly and reliably. For IoT implementation, the WiFi
meter, which is very efficient for power measurement
module ESP 8266 works reliably, which sends information
because inaccuracy is greatly reduced. The developed
to be displayed on the website throughout the existing
energy meter was tested using an electric light bulb of 60
server. This not only reduces human involvement but also
watts and a water heater of 2000 watts, driven by a supply
provides capable meter reading and mitigates billing
voltage of 230V, which draws a current up to amperes as
mistakes that can arise because of human intervention. The
shown in Fig. 2. The energy consumption was calculated,
energy meter was tested using electric appliances such as a
and the information was uploaded to the webpage using
light bulb of 60 watts, driven by a supply voltage of 230V.
IoT.The WiFi helps transmit the energy consumption
The energy consumption was calculated, after which the
information to a web page. The energy consumption data
information was uploaded to the webpage using IoT.
are then sent to a web page by uploading the web server

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 Dakka. Obulesu, K. S. V. Phani Kumar and V. Mahesh

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