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A prototype Design for Three Phase Smart Energy Meter

Conference Paper · December 2017

DOI: 10.1109/AIC-MITCSA.2017.8722989

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 A prototype Design for Three Phase Smart Energy
Meter
Fadhela K. Handhal, AbdulmuttalibT. Rashid
Electrical Engineering Department
University of Basrah
Basrah, Iraq
Abstract—This paper presents design and construction
of a three-phase smart energy meter. The meter is designed to
overcome the defects of mechanical meters such as moving parts.
The smart energy meter has several advantages over the
mechanical meter including the automatic data collection,
avoiding the errors occur due to manual readings, real-time
pricing and provides a more reliable system due to the ability of
an immediate fault detection. The designed energy meter
computes the power consumption using a microcontroller
(Arduino Mega) with the help of three AC current sensors and
three AC voltage sensors. The power consumption for each phase
can be display on a digital programmed screen. The consumer
value of the power can be sent to the monitoring station with the
remote transmitting feature. The three phase energy meter was
implemented in the laboratory with a current of up to 20 amps
and a voltage of up to 250 volts. The Calibration of the designed
meter has been taken into account to ensure that the consumer is
spent the real amount of the energy that he uses.
Keywords—Smart meter; Microcontroller; AC current sensors;
AC voltage sensors
I. INTRODUCTION
The energy meter is a device that measures the amount of
electrical energy consumed or produced by homes, shops, or
machines [1]. The energy meter is either a mechanical
(rotary) or electronic measuring device that measures the
electrical energy consumed[2]. The amount of the
consumption power for three-phase system appears either on
a mechanical rotary record number or on a digital screen.
Electric power meters manufacturers are still trying their
continuous research to provide a developed model of meters
that are more accurate, cheaper and parallel to the
technological progress made in modern smart homes[3].
Smart meters are designed to provide many features when
compared to mechanical meters such as self-monitoring,
remote sensing , two ways communication, expanded control
and increased consumer choices.[4] Digital meters and smart
meters have recently appeared. ,despite this, the
electromechanical meters are still widely distributed in the
residential areas in Iraq and some Arab countries, which have
recently been trying to replace them with smart energy
meters.
However, the development of microprocessors and the
advent of low-cost processors lead to the development of
conventional electricity meters. Because electronic devices
are free of moving parts, many problems can be avoided, such
as the changing may be occurs by the consumers and
avoiding mechanical errors such as fault of friction, incorrect
magnitude of flux, creep, sensitivity, temperature effects,
speed error, connection errors , and changes in disc resistance
etc[5]. Therefore, digital meters are less affected by the
problems mentioned above and are more accurate than
conventional meters.
There are different models of smart meters but the basic
functions are similar [6].The smart meters use a
communications network to provide the distribution
companies with frequent meter readings daily [7]. Smart
meters can inform your electrical distribution company of any
electrical failure you have in real time, allowing distribution
company to address the problem as soon as possible[8].
This paper deals with the design and building a three-
phase smart energy meter. This meter capable to measure
currents, voltages, powers, power factor and kilo-watt hour
spent by each phase. The paper is organized as follows: The
problem formulation is discussed in section II, system
architecture explained in section III, the experimental results
are shown in section IV and finally, the conclusion is
discussed in section V.
II. Problem formulation
The energy meter or watt-hour meter is designed to
measure energy or power consumed over time.
Energy = Power * Time (1)
In power system, the electrical power that consumed by loads
is measured by using a device called the wattmeter.
According to Blondell's theory [9], the number of wattmeters
used for measurement is less by one than the total number of
wires (K-1). So if the system is three-phase, four wires then
three wattmeters are used. The power consumption can then
be measured by placing a single-phase wattmeter in each
phase and adding their readings [10] i.e., finding the total
algebraic readings of three watts.
(2)
Where
(3)
The average power of each phase can be calculated using the
formula:
∫ ( ) (4)
Where : instantaneous voltage,
Instantaneous current,
t = time and
T= period.
By using the technique for sampling the voltage and current
signals[11, 12], the average power can be obtained by the
equation [13]:
∑ (5)
In order to obtain accurate values for the signal being
sampled, the sampling rate should be higher than the twice of
the highest frequency according to the sampling theory [14,
15]. Since the power signal is mainly composed of two
signals, voltage and current, the sampling rate must be greater
than four times the highest frequency of the signals, and
according to the definition of the sampling rate which equals:
(6)
Fig. 1.The complete smart energy meter.
So if the sampling process is over 100 ms (it is an exact
number of cycles for both 50Hz and 60Hz mains), and the
number of samples is 250 (to divide sample time exactly, but
low enough for the ADC to keep up), then:
Sampling rate will be =250/100ms =2500 =50 fs. This means
that the sampling rate is 50 times the frequency of the voltage
or current signal, which makes the sampling process avoiding
aliasing and noise in the readings of the sensors [16]. Taking
samples of current values and voltage values or Vrms (Volts)
and Irms (Amp) for each phase as in following equation:
∑ ( )
√
∑ ( )
√ (7)
II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
This section deals with the architecture of the designed
smart energy meter. This meter consists of the voltage
sensing unit, the current sensing unit, LCD module, automatic
changeover switch, AC / DC adapter module, transceiver
module and microcontroller unit. The sensor values are fed to
the microcontrollers (Arduino Mega) to calculate the
consumed power. The calculated values are sent to the remote
station using the wireless transmitter using the NRF24L01 RF
Transceiver. The calculated values are displayed on a digital
screen - TFT LCD which adds the flexibility to read the
values and aesthetics of the designer device. Fig. 1and Fig. 2
show the complete smart energy meter and the schematic
diagram.
 Fig.2. The schematic diagram for the smart energy meter

A. Voltage Sensing Unit B. Current Sensing Unit

The Voltage Sensing module contains Three AC Voltage The Current Sensing module contains three current sensors
Sensors (ZMPT101B). This module uses a pulse transformer ACS712 (Fig.4). ACS712 Fully Integrated, Hall Effect-Based
(Fig.3) with a transfer ratio of 1:1 used for isolation purpose, Linear Current Sensor IC with a low-resistance current
and it uses a simple op-amp circuit for isolation and stepping conductor. The device consists of a precise, low-offset, linear
down the voltage from (0–250) Volt to (0–5) Volt that is used hall circuit with a copper conduction path located near the
by the input of the Arduino microcontroller. Calibration of surface of the die. Applied current flowing through this copper
the sensors for the control of electrical capacity is one of the conduction path generates a magnetic field which the Hall IC
most important things that must be taken into account in order converts into a proportional voltage. Device accuracy is
to obtain a high accuracy in devices measurement [17]. The optimized through the close proximity of the magnetic signal
sensor calibration is achieved by comparing the sensor to the Hall transducer. The analog output signal of this sensor
reading (Vrms) that calculated by the equation(7) with the
reading of ordinary voltmeter and the results are shown in the Table (1): Calibration of ZMPT101B voltage sensor
table (1).
Instantaneous
Fluke meter voltage (V) Error (%)
calculation
10 9.95 0.5
50 49.7 0.6
100 99.5 0.5
150 149.9 0.06
200 200 0.0
210 209.9 0.047
220 220 0.0
230 229.8 0.086
Fig .3. ZMPT101B AC Voltage Sensors 240 239 0.41
which value is around Vcc/2 varies linearly with the uni--
directional or bi-directional and AC or DC primary sampled
current. This type of signal cannot be easily processed to
obtain accurate readings of the device. Fortunately, accurate
results were obtained after the adoption of the sampling
theory. The device that is designed allows the AC current to
be easily measured as a VDC signal through the
microcontrollers. The output is recorded when the input
alternating current is available. Calibration of the sensor is
shown in the table (2).

Fig.5. Several NRF24L01 Transceivers connected as a wireless network.

Fig. 4.ACS712 current sensor.

C. The wireless Transceiver module
The NRF24L01 Transceiver is a wireless device that acts
as a transmitter and a receiver. It has many advantages such
as working at 2.4GHz frequency, multiple speeds to send data
"250kHz, 1MB, 2MB" , presence mode 900nA power saving
,using SPI protocol in programming, it has fast
communication protocol between controllers and other
electronic parts, and allows the connection and transfer of
data at very high speed. Finally, it has the ability of receiving
more than one signal from more than one transmitter at the
same time. So it was chosen to communicate between the
meters after each device is provided with a specific IP address
as shown in Fig.5. 125 channels can be used to connect using
this model, and each channel can have 6 IP addresses. And it
consumes very little energy is estimated at about 12 mA at
transmission which is lower than single LED. The
Transceiver range is up to 1000 meters, which is an
acceptable range for the application that needs many smart
meter devices connected as a wireless network.
D. The LCD Module
The LCD Module that can be used with the Arduino
microcontroller as a display unit for the smart meter is a high
resolution 2.4 inch TFT touch Screen. For supporting the
Arduino project with display shield with TF display (2.4″
diagonal) bright (4 white-LED backlight) and colorful (18-bit
262,000 different shades)240×320 pixels with individual
pixel control.
E. Automatic changeover switch
The changeover circuit is used to ensure the operation of
the smart meter even when any fault occurs in any phase. The
circuit shown in Fig. 6 is one example of changeover switch.
In this circuit, the load (smart meter) is always supplied by
current even when fault occur in any phase of the source.
Two SCHRACK PCB relays are used .

Table (2): Calibration of ACS712 current sensor

Instantaneous
Fluke meter current (A) Error (%)
calculation
0.45 0.447 0.66
0.81 0.821 -1.35
1.23 1.222 0.65
1.64 1.643 -0.182
2.21 2.211 -0.045 Fig.6. Three phase Automatic changeover circuit diagram.
3.25 3.227 0.70
6.4 6.436 -0.56
10.81 10.805 0.046 F. AC / DC adapter module
12.22 12.208 0.098
16.55 16.541 0.054 This adapter is used for supply all the electronic parts in
18.13 18.122 0.044 the smart meter with a 5 volt DC. A mobile switching adapter
19.9 19.864 0.180 module 100 240V-5V / 60Hz is used, which it is output
voltage equal to 5V DC and output current equal to 1 A.
 G. The microcontroller unit
The microcontroller unit used in the designed smart meter
is The Arduino Mega 2560.It has 54 digital input/output pins,
16 analog inputs, and a 16 MHz crystal oscillator. It contains
everything needed to support the smart meter.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The performance and accuracy of the three-phase smart
energy meter are tested in two experiment results with respect
to real reading. The first experiment is used to test the
accuracy of the smart meter by examining the voltage, the
current and the power factor readings as shown in Fig. 7. The
experiment is repeated for three types of loads. In the first
one, only a resistive load is used and the result recorded in the
first row of table 3. The two remaining types are used for
different values of the combined resistive and inductive loads
and the result recorded in second and third rows in table 3.
Table 3 shows a comparison between the reading of the smart
energy meter and the laboratory readings by using a
voltmeter, an ammeter and a wattmeter. The power factor is
calculated using equation 6. Fig. 8 shows the phase difference
between the voltage and the current of the three types of
different loads of the same phase using the oscilloscope.

Fig.7. Testing the accuracy of the smart meter using resistive load

The second experiment is used to measure the amount of

energy spent by load for 24 hours. Also, the measurement is
doing by the smart energy meter and the laboratory readings.
The loads which used in this experiment are represented by
one heater and three lamps for each phase to work as a three
Fig.8. The phase difference between the voltage and the current of the three phase load as shown in Fig. 9. The readings are repeated for
types of different loads. each half hour with changing the connection of lamps to
simulate the actual readings. At each reading, we measure the
Table (3) First Experiment readings: the smart meter and the laboratory voltage, the current, the power and the power factor for each
readings. phase once by using the smart meter and the other by the
Smart meter reading Laboratory reading laboratory readings. The power consumption for all the three
V (volt) I (Amp.) pf V (volt) I (Amp.) pf
4.8 0.65 0.67 4.9 0.64 0.70
phase and during the 24 hours is indicated in Fig. 10.
9.88 1.16 0.26 9.91 1.18 0.245
9.78 1.4 0.66 9.775 1.4 0.64

Fig.9. The measuring of the amount of energy spent by load for 12 hours
using different types of loads.
Fig.10. Comparison between the energy spent by the smart meter and the
laboratory readings.
By noticing the experiment results in both experiments we
can detected that, the designed smart meter has a high
accurate readings with respect to the laboratory readings and
it provides the ability to read several parameters like the
voltage, the current, the power, the power factor and also the
energy spent by each phase as well as the total energy.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper deals with the design and implementing a
three-phase smart energy meter using Arduino mega
microcontroller with current and voltage sensors. By
comparison this meter with the laboratory readings we found
this meter has a high performance and high accuracy with
respect to the laboratory readings. This smart energy meter
has more benefits over the mechanical meter since it can be
used to measure several parameters like voltage, current,
power, power factor, and energy consumption in kWh. By
using this meter, the problem of computing the consumption
energy can be solved since this system reduces the
measurement staff. The smart energy meter can be used in
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another system for theft detection in electricity and also for
fault detection.
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