Arduino Based Smart Energy Meter using
GSM
Himanshu K. Patel, TanishMody, Anshul Goyal
Institute of Technology, Nirma University
Abstract: India faces the issue of energy theft at a
very large scale. This paper introduces a system that
removes human intervention in meter readings and
bill generation thereby reducing the error that
usually causes chaos and energy related corruption.
The proposed system is implemented using a GSM
shield module on microcontroller (Arduino®)
together with LDR sensor and relay. Existing
metering system can be minutely modified to
implement the proposed meter. The proposed
scheme is to connect an LDR sensor with the
blinking LED and send the data to microcontroller
via GSM shield. RTC provides delay and acts an
interrupt. The system includes a provision of
sending an SMS to user for update on energy
consumption along with final bill generation along
with the freedom of load re-configuration via SMS.
The disconnection of power supply on demand or
due to pending dues was implemented using a relay.
Hardware implementation results suggest that the
accuracy of the proposed system is slightly greater
than that of existing smart meters. The cost of
system has been estimated to be less than the
available smart meters, offering the same
functionality. Bilateral communication between user
and system sets it apart from the commonly
available smart meters
Keywords:Smart Energy Meter (SEM), Arduino,
GSM, SMS
I. INTRODUCTION
Energy consumption measurement is a major
yardstick of a nation’s progress today. It keeps the
injudicious exploitation of energy in check, thereby
reducing the gap between the ordinary and the
privileged. The existence and need of energy
measurement precede the actual onset of electricity
consumption. In early 1870s, the time when gas lamps
were the most popular source of energy, there existed
gas meters to compute the energy consumed. Since
then, the energy calibration process has come a long
way. Edison’s electrochemical meter for measuring
DC didn’t gain much popularity as it was labor-
intensive to read.
The currently available meters use the operating
principle first implemented in Blathy’s meters in
1889. Today’s conventional meters use kilowatt-hour
as the standard unit of measurement. The billing
requires readings to be read once during the period.
This creates room for error as it involves human
978-1-7281-1253-4/19/$31.00 © 2019 IEEE
intervention [1]. The proposed metering system in
this paper offers to automate this process thereby
eliminating fallacies and dishonest behavior. It
promotes a paperless environment where the meter
updates will be directly sent to the user via SMS. The
proposed meter is a modification of the available
smart meters. Implemented using Arduino
microcontroller and GSM, it provides bidirectional
communication between the user and meter. Ease of
reading and load disconnection/re-connection are
some of the traits that make this proposed metering
system a better alternative to prevalent systems.
The manufacturing cost of the proposed meter is
calculated to be less than that of prevalent meters
offering similar features. When put into full-scale
manufacturing, the cost can be further reduced. As the
nation progresses towards becoming digital with the
upcoming smart cities, the proposed metering system
is a major step that overcomes the shortcomings of the
existent meters. The paper further covers a thorough
literature survey, the proposed system specifications,
the software and hardware implementations followed
by the conclusion of the paper.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
The history and evolution of energy meter dates back
to the 1880s, a little before the widespread use
ofelectricity. The era of gas lamps also contained the
energy measurement system where the amount
ofenergy consumed per household was calculated.
With the discovery and use of electricity, the
electriclamps rapidly replaced the gas lamps, proving
to be brighter and more cost efficient. A new system
forconsumption measurement was required. DC
meters measured charge in the unit ampere-hours.
Withtime the DC meters proved to be insufficient.
Then came Edison’s meters classified as electrolytic
andelectrochemical meters. The electrochemical
meters, though sufficed the purpose, were labor-
intensiveto read. Thus, not welcomed by users. It was
in 1889, that a Hungarian named Otto Blathy created
andpatented the first AC meter using kilowatt-hour as
the standard unit, whose operating principle is usedtill
date.
III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
The system brings smartness in terms of bilateral
communication and controlling of load. The proposed
system senses the number of LED blinks of a
conventional metering system which are 3200 blinks
per 1 kilowatt-hour, which can be altered only at the
time of implementation depending on the metering
system used. The proposed system uses LDR as
sensor and an amplifying circuit to provide the
necessary input signal to the microcontroller. The
system waits for the output of RTC thereby serving as
an interrupt for the microcontroller and updates the
user and server through GSM shield. In case the user
wants any information regarding the energy or wants
to deter the load from the supply in between the
period, it can be communicated easily through GSM
shield by simply sending a text message which will
generate an interrupt to the microcontroller and it will
revert accordingly. User can also refer to the server
for necessary information. There are number of ways
through which data can be communicated. For using
wired technology, fiber optics or co-axial cables can
be used. Whereas for wireless, GSM, Wi-Fi, or
Zigbee technology can be used [2] [3] [4] [5],Once
bill is generated user has 15 days to pay his bill or
else his supply will be disconnected using relay [6].

IV. SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION

Fig2. Detailed circuit diagram designed on Proteus8.0

Fig3. Shows image of a local server made to collect

data

Fig1. Functional Block Diagram of Complete System.

978-1-7281-1253-4/19/$31.00 © 2019 IEEE

 Light Dependent Resistor (LDR):
Basically, LDR is a variable resistor whose value
changes with intensity of light falling on it. Its light
dependence and rugged design make it ideal to use. The
use of LDR in the transistor’s base bias circuit is shown
in fig.6.

Fig 6. Amplifier circuit using BC547 and LDR [7].

Fig. 4 Flowchart of the program code
As clearly shown in figure.4 the flowchart for the
program code is developed to highlight the logical
process of the program code which is developed for
the proposed system.
Microcontroller (Arduino):
Fig. 7 shows the Arduino-Uno Microcontroller which is
used in the proposed system for processing the input
from sensors as well as providing necessary control
signals to the peripherals.

V. HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION
Energy Meter:
In the conventional metering system the number of
LED blinks are synchronized with the energy consumed
which is used effectively in the proposed system for
calculating the units through LED sensing. A
conventional energy meter is shown in fig5.

Fig. 7 Microcontroller (Arduino)

Fig 5. An energy meter with LED blinking capability

978-1-7281-1253-4/19/$31.00 © 2019 IEEE

 GSM Shield:
A GSM shield (fig.8) is a global mobile network
module designed by Arduino® specifically for its
boards. It works over a frequency of 800,850,900
MHz.It provides the feature of bilateral communication
between the user and system as well as between system
and server [8].
Fig. 8 GSM shield
LCD:
For display purpose 16*2 LCD is used which displays
necessary information regarding energy consumption
(fig.9).
Fig. 9 16*2 LCD
RELAY:
The relay shown in fig. 10 is basically a control
switch that uses electromagnetism to exchange the
switch thus easily triggered by a small low voltage
signal. It is used to deter the load from supply
whenever needed.
Fig. 10 Relay
RTC (Real time clock):
RTC provides the necessary duration for the billing to
the system. The DS1307 RTC used in the system (fig.
978-1-7281-1253-4/19/$31.00 © 2019 IEEE
11) is a real time clock which communicates with an
I2C interface. It is a low-power clock with its own
battery. The battery provides a back-up time of 15 days.
It contains56 bytes of non-volatile RAM andcan work
in 12-hour with AM/PM as well as 24-hour format. It
can provide a delay of 1 month making it ideal for SEM
[9] [10].
Fig. 11 DS1307 card (RTC)
VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
To verify the accuracy of the system, it was examined
under various load conditions and results obtained
were compared with the readings taken on the
conventional meter under same loading and for the
same duration.Some of the observations are tabulated
in following table to show the comparison between
the readings of the conventional system and the
proposed system.
Conventional meter Smart energy meter
Reading (in kWh) Reading (in kWh)
3.00 3.01
4.2 4.2
5.6 5.65
6.4 6.39
From the above shown results it can be clearly
concluded that the proposed system produces results
similar to that of conventional meters. In the tabulated
results, the largest deviation from the standard
conventional energy meter reading is 0.05 units over the
measured value of 5.6 units, whereas the smallest error
is 0.01 units over the measured value of 6.4 units.
Hence, the results tabulated herewith are affirming the
accuracy of proposed system to be better than 99%, as
the errors are not more than 0.5% -0.8%.
 The above table shows the superiority of the proposed
system in terms of economy as well as accuracy over
present smart meters.

VII. CONCLUSION
The aim is to create a user-friendly billing system with
least human errors, by implementing modern
technology that is compatible even with the old
metering units. LDR is used to sense the units
consumed without tempering the existing mechanism.
Fig.12 Experimental Set-up The system employs GSM for bidirectional
communication while timer gives the real time even if
there is no supply. This device enables the users to
easily monitor and track their energy usage. The system
proves to be advantageous in such a way that the user
receives updates on consumption through a message
and can even disconnect the load from the supply when
not required with a simple message. This makes up for
an energy and economy-efficient environment. Thus,
the entire system is a confluence of modern technology
and existing electrical architecture that shall be user-
friendly without affecting its simplicity in
implementation.

Since this system can put India on the map of

electrically-smart nations, there needs to be some work
done to customize the system for our country. For
further implementations, the system can be exploited
with some theft protections. Even though the system is
designed to fit for domestic use as of now, the research
for its economic feasibility on a commercial scale for
industries is an unexplored arena. The industrial system
could include power factor metering as well as control
of power correction systems at different loading
conditions. This will be additionally beneficial to the
industries as it prevents them from penalties for low
power factor implementation.

Fig. 13 SMS received by user via GSM VIII. REFERENCES

Fig. 12 shows the actual photograph of the test set up
while performing actual testing, whereas in figure.13
[1]. Md. Masudur Rahman; Noor-E-Jannat; Mohd.
the screenshot of the SMS is shown which is received
Ohidul Islam; Md. SerazusSalakin, Arduino® and
by the consumer through GSM.
GSM Based Smart Energy Meter for Advanced
EXISTING PROPOSED Metering and Billing System, Pabna University of
SMART METERING Science & Technology, 2nd Int'l Conf. on
METERS SYSTEM Electrical Engineering and Information &
Information on Yes Yes Communication Technology (ICEEICT) 2015.
usage of energy [2]. Chongjin Xie, Fiber Nonlinearities in Coherent
Optial Communication Systems, 10th
Remote reading Yes Yes
International Conference on Optical
and billing
Communications and Networks (ICOCN 2011).
Remote supply Yes Yes [3]. Patel H. K., D. Shah, M. Sheth, S. Trivedi,
connection or S.Bakliwal, I. Shah, R. Shrotriya,
dis-connection “Microcontroller and GSM Based Digital Prepaid
Energy Meter”, International Journal of
Remote Yes Yes
Electronics, Computer and Communications
reconfiguration
Technologies (IJECCT), Vol. 4, Issue 1, pp 32-
Cost 7000-8000/- Less than 4000/- 37, Oct. 2013, ISSN(P): 2180-3536, ISSN
(O):2180-3706, Malaysia.
Accuracy 1% 0.5-0.8% [4]. RafhanahShazwaniRosli, Mohamed HadiHabaebi,
MdRafiqul Islam, Characteristic Analysis of

978-1-7281-1253-4/19/$31.00 © 2019 IEEE

 Received Signal Strength Indicator from
ESP8266 WiFi Transceiver Module, 20187th
International Conference on Computer and
Communication Engineering (ICCCE).
[5]. Guanghui Pan, Jia He, Qin Wu, Rui Fang, Jiashuo
Cao, Deqing Liao, Automatic Stabilization of
Zigbee Network, 2018 International Conference
on Artificial Intelligenceand Big Data.
[6]. RiktaMajumder, SukdevDolui, DebasisAgasti,
Surajit Biswas, Micro-controller Based Over
Current Relay Using Hall Effect Current Sensor,
2018 Emerging Trends in Electronic Devices and
Computational Techniques (EDCT)
[7]. Revathy.M, Ramya.S, Sathiyavathi.R, B.Bharathi
and V. Maria Anu, Automation of Street Light for
Smart City, International Conference on
Communication and Signal Processing, April 6-8,
2017, India
[8]. FahmiFahmi, BaihaqiSiregar, Sylvi Evelyn, Dani
Gunawan, UlfiAndayani, Person Locator Using
GPS Module and GSM Shield Applied for
ChildrenProtection, 2018
6thInternationalConference on Information
and Communication Technology (ICoICT).
[9]. Rajesh Kannan Megalingam, Venkat Krishnan,
Balasubramanian, Mithun
MuralidharanNair,VineethSarmaVenugopala
Sarma, RahulSrikumar, Power Aware Automatic
Microcontroller Based Smart, College Electric
Bell System with Time Display, 2009 Fifth
International Conference on MEMS NANO and
Smart Systems.
[10]. Alan L. Vergara, Harreez M. Villaruz,
Development of an Arduino-Based Automated
Household Utility Power Monitoring System, 7th
IEEE International Conference Humanoid,
Nanotechnology, Information Technology
Communication and Control, Environment and
Management (HNICEM).

978-1-7281-1253-4/19/$31.00 © 2019 IEEE