INTRODUCTION

Electricity is one of the vital requirements for sustainment of contents of life. It should be
used very judiciously for its proper utilization. But in our country, we have lot of localities
where we have surplus supply for the electricity while many areas do not even have access to
it. Our policies of its distribution are also partially responsible for this because we are still
not able to correctly estimate our exact requirement and still power theft is prevailing. On the
other hand, consumers are also not satisfied with the services of power companies. Most of
the time they have complaints regarding statistical errors in the monthly bills. with this we
can monitor meter and track if any fault is there or not. In previous meter a circular metal
strip rotates and according to that rotation we calculate the consumption. But our meter
works on pulse which is created according to consumption and we previously connected an-
droid board which monitor the pulse and according to pulse the bill is generated. With the
help of this project, we are aiming to receive the monthly energy consumption from a remote
location directly to centralized office. In this way we can reduce human efforts needed to
record the meter readings which are till now recorded by visiting every home individually.
Smart energy meter is an electronic device that measures the most accurate amount
of electricity consumed by a residence, business, or any electrically-powered device. A smart
meter is reliable source for most accurate information of consumed energy that reduces the
chance of error in the existing billing system to minimal.

1.1 EXISTING PREPAID METERING TECHNOLOGIES:

 SMART CARD based prepaid energy meter: Smart card is a credit card sized plastic
card embedded with an integrated circuit (IC) and usually it consists of a ROM,
EEPROM and a CPU.A smart card provides both the memory capacity and the
computational capability [5]. Access to data stored on the card is under the control of the
smart card operating system. In this method consumer have to have the smart card
recharged for the amount he chooses and enter the card into the card reader of the energy
meter. Then the meter stores the number of units recharged and start to measures the
energy consumption. When purchased units are used up the meter disconnect the power
supply until the next recharge.
 RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) based Prepaid Energy Meters: Radio-
frequency identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and
remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. The technology requires
some extent of cooperation of an RFID reader and an RFID tag. An RFID tag is an object that can
be applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification
and tracking using radio waves. Some tags can be read from several meters away and beyond
the line of sight of the reader. In this method RFID cards which are issued by the electricity
suppliers to individual consumers are used. This RFID card is unique with a code in it and
consumers are free to make flexible recharge. When the consumer wants to use the system, he
needs to show the card to the reader, then the unique code inside the card is recognized by the
reader, and starts deducing the amount of the RFID card as per the quantized unit charge. When
the usage completes the consumer must recharge the RFID card again.

In this project the Prepaid smart energy meter using GSM and Arduino includes:

• LCD Display, which is used for displaying readings of the parameters that are being
measured.

• GSM module is used for communication with the end user and it is responsible for
updating the data on the distribution side

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

As we mentioned above several advantages of digital energy meters, but always there are
chances of innovation or modification in different instruments for ease of consumer and
supplier. Following are some problems observed in those energy meters which should be
rectified:

 Meter reading and other related tasks like bill payment are performed by many staff
i.e., large number of employees are required.
 An expansive number of staff is utilized for meter reading and other related
assignments like bill payment.
 Billing errors due to carelessness of meter readers during meter reading and sometime
billing estimation.
 Consumer must stand in queue for hours for bill payment.
 Careless usage of electricity by consumer who is unaware of its cost.
 Consumers are not bound to pay bill on time.
LITERATURE SURVEY
 K. Ashna “GSM Based Automatic Energy Meter Reading System with Instant
Billing” proposed the design of a simple low-cost wireless GSM energy meter and its
associated wave interface, for automating billing and managing the collected data
globally.
 Vivek Kumar Sehgal “Electronic Energy Meter with Instant Billing” introduced
the concept of Post-paid Energy Meter which automatically sense the energy used in
the home and when it reaches value which is initially fed in the hardware it will
disconnect the power line. A user interface given in the hardware for user which will
interact with the hardware, through user interface user can set a value.
 Ms. Prajakta B. Murmude, Mr. Sachin G. Jagdale , Ms. Sunita D. Giri “GSM based
Prepaid Energy Meter” proposed the design and implementation of a GSM based
remote operation of an energy meter which gives the solution to power theft,
consumption control, auto billing and payment, data logging and Manpower reduction
in power distribution and management.
 The major disadvantage of the present systems is these systems are post-paid base
service, Electricity board gives the service before collecting the payment from the
customers and it is difficult for electricity board to collect the payable amount from
the customers and at the same Electricity board cannot stop to providing the service.
So, there is need of a system service after payment
.

PROPOSED SYSTEM
This mechanism requires the consumers to pay for the electricity before its consumption. On that
way, users hold credit and then use the electricity until the credit is ended. If the available credit is
ended then the electricity supply is cut off by a relay. Readings made by operators are prone to
errors. In this system, consumers can recharge the device and update the balance as we do on our
mobile phones.

By sending a simple SMS, you can recharge the electricity balance through this system. It can also
disconnect the home power supply connection if there is a zero balance in the system. And this
system will read the energy meter readings and automatically send some updates to the user’s
mobile phone like low balance alert, cut off alert and recharge alert.

The proposed system consists of some of the innovative ideas which those energy meter should be
rectified

 With the help of smart prepayment meter, we will be more aware of how much we pay each
month for our energy usage.
 Because no bills are sent, incorrect billing as a result of inaccurate meter readings is no
longer a problem.
 Energy is paid for before it consumed. This contrasts with the current arrangement of paying
for them after use.
 The prepaid system will empower customers to understand the cost energy and thus enable
them to budget their usage in accordance with their financial position and lifestyle. Because
it is not necessary to pay large bills once a quarter or month, they may choose their own
timing and frequency of purchasing electricity.

OBSERVATIONS AND RESULT

 The system is being initialised. The Arduino is trying to establish connection with the
components. The Arduino can then process this data to calculate various parameters
such as voltage, current, power factor, active power, reactive power, and apparent
power. These parameters can be used to generate total energy usage, energy usage per
hour. We use an LCD display to display the usage data.
 Now, the Arduino establishes connection with the GSM 800 L module. We have
written a code to interface the GSM module with the Arduino board. It needs to use
the AT commands to communicate with the GSM module. Fig shows the initializing
GSM command in LCD display.

 GSM 800 L Module establishes connection with the mobile network for
communication.
 The system finally shows the consumed units and balance on LCD display in Fig
 The GSM starts communicating with the user for the consumed units and available
balance through an SMS. GSM is used to inform about the low balance and zero
balance of the prepaid account.
 The below Fig shows the SMS about the low balance alert, zero balance alert and
recharge alert. If the balance is low then it communicates the SMS as “Balance Low!
Please Recharge Immediately” as an alert to the consumer.
 If the balance is completely zero then it displays as “Balance Zero! Power supply
Turned Off” as an alert for the consumer. The power supply is cut off as there is no
balance.
 To retain the power supply, we must recharge the meter through an SMS by a
command and prescribed amount we want. If there is some of the balance remaining
then the present recharged amount gets added to the balance.
 CONCLUSIONS
 By using this project, we can reduce the manual effort to take the reading from the
energy meter which is cost effective.
 Divergence in service is going to be the key competitive factor to the improve market
share in the present power markets prepaid meters with their advantages over
conventional ones are likely to help power providers to differentiate and offer value –
added services to users.
 Encourage clients to opt for prepaid meters on a voluntary basis and offering tariff or
non-tariff incentives to those users who prepaid their power changes would help the
utilities to execute this system.
 Reduces man power.
 It is user friendly and we can enhance this project, in which an electricity department
can send message to the consumer about the billing information
FUTURE SCOPE:
 This is 21st century and there is no space for errors or faults either in any technical
system or in general applications. Prepaid energy meter is a beneficial concept for the
future. It is facilitating the remission from electricity bills. Electricity vouchers will be
available at nearby shops.
 We can reduce the manual effort to take the readings from the energy meter which is
cost effective.
 Android application for smart users.
 The word prepaid means “pay before use” one of the beneficial features of this
concept prepaid energy meter is used to prepaid the current supply of electricity to
homes, offices etc