DESIGN A TALKING ENERGY METER BASED ON MICROCONTROLLER

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Abstract - In recent years, the demand for electricity has economy. Future economic growth crucially depends on
increased in households with the use of different appliances. the long term availability of energy from its sources.
This raises a concern to many developed and developing
nations with the demand in immediate increase of electricity. The Microcontroller based “Talking Energy Meter” mainly
People are unaware of energy consumed by various appliances. aims at the middle class and the lower class family to bring
An electricity meter is a device that measures the amount of their electricity bill down with the help of the power
electric energy consumed by various electrical appliances. The consumption alert system. It benefits the government as it is
main drawback of previously used traditional meters is that helps in reducing the power consumption and succeedingly
they do not provide information to the consumers, which is can reduce the unusual power usage. Energy meters being
accomplished with the help of Talking Energy Meter. As power deployed at homes are used for reading the power that is
consumption is increasing day by day there should be more being consumed. Each consumer may fix a customized
focus on understanding consumption patterns. Traditional threshold value (unit). If the value reaches above the
electromechanical energy meters are now replaced by threshold, it will alert to the consumer by voice module. This
electronic meters in domestic as well as commercial system may install at any place where the energy
applications. This project is aims to design a circuit which helps consumption should be regularly monitored and controlled.
the consumer in taking care of the electrical energy The consumers can fix their own threshold budget values and
consumption. This system helps the users by alerting them can be easily customized based on their requirements. This is
about the billing status and unit consumption. The “Talking used to continuously monitor the meter reading and give
Energy Meter” using ATMEGA328 Microcontroller is an monthly information about the number of units consumed
exclusive system which is used to help the deaf and dumb along with its cost to the consumer. It also alerts the user if
people to announce their requirements using voice module someone tries to steal the electricity from meter by using IR
aPR33A3. This aims to provide a user friendly interaction. sensor and cut the line and inform the Electricity Board by
mobile application.

Key words: ATMEGA328 Microcontroller, Energy Meter, Major components used in this system are Microcontroller
Power Consumption, Threshold Limit, Unit ATMEGA 328, Energy Meter, GSM module, Voice Module
Consumption, Voice Module aPR33A3, IR Sensor. Microcontroller is the central unit of
this system and is connected to GSM module, Voice Module
1. INTRODUCTION aPR33A3 and energy meter through various ports.

In the early phase of household technology, delivery of Microcontroller drives the voice module to play the voice
electricity is completely depended on traditional energy messages based on the energy meter readings. The typical
meters. These meters play a key role in measuring the voice alerts are like “threshold limit is reached”, “pay
consumption of electrical energy in individual households. electricity bill” etc. This system also consists of a LCD
The usage of these meters has been slowly declining with the display that continuously displays the energy meter
improvement in technology as fast changes has been made to readings in real time. This can be achieved by the use of
encounter the problems occurred by the traditional meters. microcontroller ATMEGA 328 unit that is used to monitor
The major problem arises when habitants are unaware of and records the energy usage readings in its memory. The
their daily behavior. Monthly feedback given to the consumers microcontroller that we use here is ATMEGA 328.
is not sufficient as the consumers will not have knowledge on
how much energy does the individual appliances consume. To 2. LITERATURE SURVEY
overcome the problems of traditional electricity meters,
electronic meter or static energy meter comes in picture. Now In order to design this project, literature review has been
a day’s, technology is developing rapidly. High automated and made from various sources like journal, books, article and
secured systems are preferred in all fields including others. This chapter includes all important studies which
electricity distribution. Electrical energy is universally have been done previously by other research work. It is
accepted as an essential commodity for human beings. Energy importance to do the literature review before doing the
is the prime mover of economic growth and is vital to the project. The review of the work is given as follows:
sustenance of modern

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 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
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In Power Consumption Alert System [2], they design a circuit 4. WORKING OF TALKING ENERGY METER BASED
which helps the consumer in taking care of the electrical ON MICROCONTROLLER
energy consumption, to make the consumer aware and to
control the excess power consumption. This system will The purpose behind this system is to design a circuit
inform the consumer about their usage rate via SMS. Once the which aware the consumer about their energy usage by
maximum threshold value is reached, power is cut off with a giving the voice alert when consumed energy get exceeds
prior notification to the consumer. Due to this, customer feels the threshold limit which is set by the user according to
inconveniency in emergency condition. This system gives the their requirement. It also helps to monitor the electrical
alert to the consumer via SMS only. energy usage and protect the meter if someone tries to
theft the electricity by cutting the line of meter with prior
GSM based talking energy meter [5] is used to monitor and SMS to the electricity board. The block diagram of Talking
alert the consumer of their power usage. But the hardware Energy Meter based on Microcontroller is shown in fig. 4.
required for this system is very complex.
An AC source is given to the electric energy meter and
In our system, we have covered all the drawbacks of from this; the load is connected to the meter via a relay
existing system. Basically talking energy meter based on switch. The fourth LED of the energy meter is given to one
microcontroller is used to give the alert of energy usage if of the digital pins of microcontroller ATMEGA 328 at port
the set limit get exceeds, billing status etc. The C as shown in fig. 4. The microcontroller is connected to
microcontroller which we have used here is ATMEGA 328, the voice module and the GSM module. The GSM module is
it has 32K of flash memory, 1K of EEPROM and 2K of used to send and receive messages via a mobile network to
internal SRAM (Static Random Access Memory). give daily alerts. The energy values once taken from the
energy meter are digitized and processed with the help of
3. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION a microcontroller ATMEGA 328. The billing of the
corresponding energy usage is determined and per unit
The different literatures are studied which helped in rate of consumption is set at the time of programming. The
designing a new system for monitoring and giving the threshold unit value is set for which the consumption level
alerts to the consumers. increase is notified to the user. And the user can change
that threshold limit according to the requirement by using
3.1 Drawbacks of Existing System dome switch.

a) Manual Interference A relay switch is connected with the microcontroller and the
load which is used to cut the supply if someone tries to steal
Traditional meter reading of electricity consumption is the electricity. It is used as protection purpose. Voice Module
done my human operator by visiting one place to another is used to give the alert when consumption of units exceeds
in every month. This takes more time to collect the data the set limit by user. As soon as the limit exceeds, the voice
from each and every user and also requires more human alert occur and SMS get send on registered mobile number.
operator. Due to human interference, error may occur in
reading and results error in billing too. 4.1 Components Used
b) Electricity usage is not monitored
4.1.1 Hardware Requirements
There is no knowledge of electricity usage because in
a) Energy Meter
existing system only monthly bill comes so consumers not
get aware about their daily usage. b) Microcontroller ATMEGA 328
c) LCD
c) No Provision for energy stealing
d) GSM Module
In previous meter, if energy gets theft by the other people,
owner not gets information about the stealing of their e) Relay
energy meter. And owner get suffer from this. f) DS1307 RTC

3.2 Proposed System g) Voltage Regulator IC 7805

h) IR Sensor
In proposed system, all the drawbacks of existing system
i) Voice Module
are overcome. Talking Energy Meter based on
microcontroller is design to give voice alert and monitor
the energy usage. Voice can be in any language so that it
4.1.2 Software Requirement
easy to understand for common people. It is more
a) Arduino IDE
convenient to physically disabled people.

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 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 05 Issue: 01 | Jan-2018 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

6. CONCLUSION

The Talking Energy Meter based on Microcontroller is

used to alert the user whenever the usage of energy
exceeds the threshold value which can be set by user by
using dome switch, it announces a voice message which is
already predefined in the voice module. This helps in
saving electricity and also keeping the electricity bills
under limits. It not only benefits the consumer, but also
benefits the government as it is capable of reducing the
power consumption and subsequently can reduce the
unusual power usage. By using this meter, customer can
manage their energy consumption.

A small module consisting of the Microcontroller ATMEGA

328, Voice Module aPR33A3, IR Sensor, GSM Module and RTC
DS 1307 can be installed with energy meter to make the
electricity consumption smarter. In this system, the use of
GSM and voice module provides numerous advantages over
the methods that have been previously used.

7. FUTURE SCOPE

Our project “Design a Talking Energy Meter based on

Microcontroller” is mainly intended to get a voice alert if
Fig. 4: Block Diagram of Talking Energy Meter based on
usage goes beyond a set value. This system used a voice
Microcontroller
module into which a predefined alert voice messages are
stored. And also it sends the SMS to user of billing status
5. RESULT and when preset limit is exceeds.
The project “Design a Talking Energy Meter based on The size of this project can be compact by using advanced
Microcontroller” is design such that whenever the usage of processor. It can be modified to detect the faulty condition
energy exceeds the threshold value which is set by user, it like over voltage, over current, earthing fault etc.
announces an alert message which was already predefined in
the voice circuit. The SMS of monthly billing status is also
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
sends on user’s mobile number which is mentioned in
program. The snapshot of SMS is shown in fig. 5.
We take this opportunity to express our gratitude and
indebtedness to our guide Mr. M. D. Ghatole, Assistant
Professor, Electrical (E & P) department, who is a constant
source of guidance and inspiration in preparing this work.

We express our sincere gratitude towards H.o.D., Mr. B. S.

Rakhonde, and Assistant Professor whose constant help
and encouragement helped us to complete our Project
report. We are grateful to Dr. L. P. Dhamande, Principal for
his encouragement and support.

We are also thankful to all the staff members of Electrical

(E & P) department, whose suggestions helped us to
complete the Project Work.

REFERENCES

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Fig. 5: Snapshot of Received Message of Billing Status and Integrated Raspberry Pi Single board Computer via
Energy Usage Status Modbus,”Electrical, Electronics and Computer

© 2018, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 6.171 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1338
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 05 Issue: 01 | Jan-2018 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

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