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Design of Smart Energy Meter with power Theft detection and a novel of
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Article in International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering · March 2019

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 International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)
ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-7, Issue-6, March 2019

Design of Smart Energy Meter with power

Theft detection and a novel of billing
Payment
A.Aswin, Chidambaram.R, S.B.Kavin darshan, Abinav Soorya.N, S.Senthilmurugan

 imbalance between the generation, distribution and

Abstract: The advent in technology has made the necessity of consumption of electricity. The conventional meter reading
electrical and electronics devices by human beings in order to systems involves
live a comfortable and secured life. Electricity being the
manpower to visit to the consumers place and generates bill
important element of human beings for powering electrical and
electronics applications like domestic, agricultural and amount according to energy consumed. The absence of the
industrial purposes. Power theft being a major issue had become consumers creates a difficulty for the operator to revisit the
a threat to our grid systems, creating a loss to electricity boards. consumer place again thereby wasting a lot of time,
These situations are more frequently observed in countries like resources. Lack of payment of the bill generated creates
India. Resolving this issue can save a lot of power thereby situation where the operator has to manually disconnect the
creating an uninterruptable power supply to the costumer and electrical supply. It is a prolonged process and also very
there by strengthening the economic aspects of the electricity
problematic to manage these situations.The authorized
markets. Implementation of Smart energy meter can resolve this
issue. Smart Energy Meter (SEM) is an electric device used for electrical operators find it challenging to identify
monitoring the energy consumption patterns and uses a wireless unsanctioned connections or power theft carried out by the
protocol for transferring data and communicating in a end users in order to stop or reduce the meter reading
bidirectional way. This paper presents power theft detection and creating a huge economic loss in the global economic
an automated billing process using smart energy meter. With scenario. This scenario can be reframed efficiently by
smart meter the rate at which energy is consumed is monitored
gathering the rate of energy consumed from the smart meter
and their corresponding amount will be displayed thereby
transferring the data to the base station. The data transferred and transmitting the gathered data wirelessly to central
between the consumer and the utility helps in controlling and database where it can be further processed, analyzed, and
detecting power theft. This smart energy meter can be organized for the accurate billing purposes. The smart energy
configured as post-paid or prepaid meter. The proposed system mete can communicate between the consumer and
interchanges conventional meter reading techniques and distribution hub in a bidirectional way. It involves the active
facilitates the energy provider to access the energy meter participation of the consumer in the grid system where in the
remotely.
conventional metering system there is no interaction between
Index Terms: Smart Energy Meter (SEM), GSM, RFID.
the electrical grid and the consumers. The implementation of
I. INTRODUCTION the smart energy meter enables the user to remotely access
their home appliances and monitor their energy consumption
With the constant growth in technology, the need of rates so that energy consumption pattern can be changed
automated meter reading systems is also growing. The accordingly their by reducing the carbon foot prints and
conventional meter is not suitable for accurate meter supplying the consumers with uninterrupted power supply.
readings and involves large man power to take the meter
readings, analyzing the data and generating the bill amount. II. BLOCK DIAGRAM OF PROPOSED MODEL
This leads to misreading of the energy consumed and results
in great economic loss to the consumers as well as to the The proposed model has two subdivisions mainly, one is base
utility providers. With the advent in technology and ever substation and the other is the consumer’s location.
increasing human population has created a demand of Communication between these subdivisions is done through
generation of electricity at higher rates. This has created an wireless protocol in a bidirectional way. This smart energy
meter loads, helps in processing data gathered, analyzing the
data and thereby giving the customers a proper suggestion on
Revised Manuscript Received on March 25, 2019. electricity management. Energy consumed by the consumer
A.Aswin, Department of Electrical and Electronics, SRM Institute of
Science and Technology, Chennai, India.
and the equivalent amount will be showed on the LCD
Chidambaram.R, Department of Electrical and Electronics, SRM Institute constantly and data is transferred to the governing base
of Science and Technology, Chennai, India. station.
S.B.Kavin Darshan, Department of Electrical and Electronics, SRM
Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India.
Abinav Soorya.N, Department of Electrical and Electronics, SRM Institute
of Science and Technology, Chennai, India.
S.Senthilmurugan, Department of Electrical and Electronics, SRM
Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India.

Published By:
Retrieval Number: F2289037619/19©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
1144 & Sciences Publication
 Design of Smart Energy Meter with power Theft detection and a novel of billing Payment

The power theft can be identified and monitored through a in the circuit. The power source block comprises of
feedback mechanism from the end users. The SMS message step-down transformer, rectifier, and IC 7805 voltage
includes cyclic bill amount along with the due period is sent regulator. The ATMega 328 in the Arduino board requires
to the corresponding meter proprietor through a GSM 5V power supply which obtained from a voltage regulator.
module which is present in the governing substation. This The microcontroller is the main block which follows a lot of
component also helps in notifying the certified electrical algorithm to process information and issues command to the
board members through an SMS at the time of power theft. peripheral device. The energy meter is coupled with the
RFID is a part of AIDC it is mostly used in tracking objects Arduino using an interfacing device called Optocoupler. The
via RFID tags. The implementation and design of a GSM 230V AC power supply is given to operate the loads. The
based smart meter system has been discussed in this paper. wireless communication channel also requires power supply
RFID tag will be explored as a medium of communication in for its operation and transmission. The power supply blocks
smart metering system. The block diagram of the proposed helps in the efficient functioning of the smart energy meter.
model is shown in Fig.1. C. LCD
The proposed system employs a 16x2 Character panel liquid
crystal display (LCD).It is an electronic visual display device
that possess (LCs) liquid crystals with light modulating
characteristics. LCD comprises of two transparent electrodes
in which layers of molecules are aligned, polarizing filters
and the axis of transmission of light are perpendicular to
each other in most cases. The light transmitted through the
first filter would be obstructed by the second (crossed)
polarizer during the absence of LC’s in the polarizing filters.
Double refraction is most common in case of LCs. The liquid
crystal which are in contact with electrodes are to be treated
in order to align the LC’s particles in a particular direction.
D. MICROCONTROLLER UNIT
Fig.1 Architecture of Smart Energy Meter. The proposed design uses a PIC16f877A. The controller has
a built-in SPI master and enough I/O lines to satisfy current
III. SYSTEM HARDWARE needs. All internal communications takes place through the
microcontroller. The PIC16F877A features
The elementary hardware components required for the
self-programming, 256 bytes of EEPROM data memory,
Project are listed below:
10-bit Analog-to-Digital (A/D) converter, an ICD, 8
1) RFID Reader
channels of 2 Comparators, 2 capture/compare/PWM
2) Power Supply
functions, the synchronous serial port can be configured as
3) Rectifier
either 3-wire Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) or the 2-wire
4) LCD
Integrated Circuit (IC) bus and a Universal Asynchronous
5) ATMEGA
Receiver Transmitter (USART). All of these features make it
6) GSM Module
ideal for more advanced level A/D applications in industrial,
7) Current Transformer and Potential Transformer
automotive, and consumer applications.
8) Relay Control unit.
E. GSM
A. RFID
The Communication channel includes a GSM Module. It is
The proposed system design employs an EM-18 RFID
used for transmitting the data from remote location to the
reader which is most commonly used to read tags. These
regulatory operator. The serial communication with the
RFID tags can be used for reading 125 KHz tags. The
modem is 1 stop bit, no parity, 115200 bauds and full duplex
EM-18 RFID is a low frequency RFID system. The merits of
8 bits. This modem consist of a Subscriber Identification
this device includes low power consumption, low cost,
Module (SIM) for communication purposes. Its
compact size, form factor is small and the usability of the
specifications are:
device becomes easy. The operating voltages varies from
1) Tri-Band GSM 1800 MHz
3.5to 5.5v and the operating frequency is at 125KHz.The
2) Supply voltage varies from 3.4V to 4.5V
device can directly interacted with the microcontroller
3) Power consumption is less.
through two supported protocols namely Wiegand 26 and
4) Operating temperature varies from -20°C to +60°C
TTL serial as per the proposed system design. The RFID
5) Debug interface and Serial interface
reader detects the smart card and displays the balance
6) Interfacing LCD is possible.
amount present in the card so the consumer can recharge the
card for uninterrupted power supply.
B. POWER UNIT
The power source is the power house of every electrical and
electronics projects circuit that activates all the components

Published By:
Retrieval Number: F2289037619/19©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
1145 & Sciences Publication
 International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)
ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-7, Issue-6, March 2019

7) Keypad interfacing is possible.

8) Antenna pad
9) Antenna connector.
F. RELAY CONTROL UNIT
Relay unit serves the purpose of interrupting the electricity
supply when the balance in the customer’s account goes
below a threshold level. Whenever the amount in the
customer account is sufficient the electricity is continued
through the relay module. The relay circuit is controlled by
the PIC16f877A microcontroller. The system transfers the
data with the utility database wirelessly. The PIC16f877A
commands the functioning of the relay unit to resume or shut
off the power supply base on the information stored in the
database.

IV. RESULTS Fig .4. Establishment of network connection.

The proposed smart meter design helps in efficient way of Once the network is established the smart energy meter is
managing power consumption by both the consumers and the ready to send and receive messages and a test message is
distribution network. By implementing this smart energy initiated through SMS in order to check the proper
meter load imbalance can be reduced and lot of energy can be functioning of the Smart meter which is shown in Fig.5.The
saved leaving less carbon footprints. The design also test message received by the users is shown in Fig.6
integrates the presence of Anti –Theft system which alerts
the user if some unknown load is connected to our system.
Combination of both technology i.e. smart energy meter
and Anti-theft system provides end to end encryption for the

Fig.5. Initiation of Test message.

user without affecting their privacy. The hardware

implementation of Smart Meter is shown in Fig.2
Fig.2. Smart meter Hardware setup when it is switched ON.
After the indicating the Turn ON condition of the smart
energy meter the Smart energy meter checks the signal
strength of the GSM module connected to the Smart meter
which is shown in Fig.3.Once the Signal strength is good the
Smart meter is ready to send and receive messages which is

Fig.6. Test message sent to the User

shown in Fig.4.
Fig.3.Checking of Network strength.

Published By:
Retrieval Number: F2289037619/19©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
1146 & Sciences Publication
 Design of Smart Energy Meter with power Theft detection and a novel of billing Payment

The smart energy meter displays the No. of units consumed in the smart card is transferred to their account which is
by the user and the calculated cost of the units consumed by shown in Fig.10.
the user. The costs per unit is set in the smart meter according
to the Tariff set by the Energy Market or the government.
The units and price displayed when it is not connected to the
load is shown in Fig.7 and when it is loaded it is shown in

Fig.10. Recharging done through smart card

After recharging sufficient amount into the account the smart
indicated the user the amount being added into their account
which is shown in Fig.11.
Fig.7. Readings displayed under NO Load condition

Fig.11. Acknowledgement for the recharged amount.

The presence of Anti-Theft system in the smart energy meter
protects the users by indicating them if unknown loads are
Fig.8. Readings displayed under loaded condition.
connected to their system. This helps in encrypting of the
If the cost price of the units consumed exceeds the balance
data present in the device and provides privacy for the
present in the smart meter, the smart meter disconnects itself
customers. Once the Theft is detected the smart energy meter
from the load and asks the user to recharge their account
send SMS to the user about the theft through the GSM
module present in the hardware setup which is shown in
Fig.12.

Fig.12.Theft Message sent to the User.

which is shown in Fig.9.

Fig.9.Indication of low balance.
The customers can recharge their account using a smart card
which is sensed by the RFID reader and the amount present

Published By:
Retrieval Number: F2289037619/19©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
1147 & Sciences Publication
 International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)
ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-7, Issue-6, March 2019

V. CONCLUSION 16. S Department of Energy, The smart grid: An introduction. How a smarter
grid works as an enabling engine for our economy, our environment and
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The proposed smart meter technology shows the consumer IEEE/PES, Apr. 2008, pp. 1–6.
19. J. Torriti, M. G. Hasan and M. Leach, “Demand response experience in
the energy consumed and the cost for the energy Europe: Policies, programmes and implementation”, Energy, vol. 35, issue
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user in identifying whether their system is being tampered.
Implementation and integration of all these technology into a
single hardware product will have a huge market in the AUTHORS PROFILE
global society.
A.Aswin is a Final year UG Student. He is currently
studying B.Tech. EEE in SRM Institute of Science and
VI. FUTURE SCOPE Technology, Kattankulathur, India. He has also
participated in many International Conferences and also
The proposed hardware method can be improvised using published papers in many International Journals. His
RTOS (Real Time Operating System) which runs the energy research interests are Smart grid, Electric vehicles, Wireless
sensor networks, Biomedical.
meter functions and commands in real time clock which
ultimately reduces the error present in the billing process. Chidambaram.R is a Final year UG Student. He is
Other features like online monitoring systems can be currently studying B.Tech. EEE in SRM Institute of
Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, India. He has
implemented in this system in order to make active also participated in many International Conferences and
participation of the consumers in the grid system. also published papers in many International Journals. His
research interests are Smart grid, Wireless sensor network,
Energy Management.
REFERENCES
S.B.Kavin Darshan is a Final year UG Student. He is
1. Ms.Shraddha m. bang1,Ms.Anushree a. wankhade2 suyog b.Pavitrakar3
currently studying B.Tech. EEE in SRM Institute of
,sangram s. deshmukh4 Prof. Manish k. shriwas5 “A novel approach for
Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, India. He has
smart energy meter using 89C51 microcontroller ” international journal of
also participated in many International Conferences and
scientific & engineering research,volume7,issue 2, februrary-2016.
also published papers in many International Journals. His
2. Al-saheer s. s., Shimi s. l. and Dr. s. Chatterji, “Design of a smart meter for
research interests are Smart grid, Energy Management,
the Indian energy scenario” int. journal of engineering research and
Power systems, Electrical Machines.
applications, ISSN : 2248-9622, vol. 4, issue 9( version 4), september
2014, pp.59-66.
Abinav Soorya. N is a Final year UG Student. He is
3. Ganiyu a. ajenikoko1, Anthony a. olaomi2 “hardware design of a smart
currently studying B.Tech. EEE in SRM Institute of
meter”, int. journal of engineering research and applications, ISSN :
Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, India. He has
2248-9622, vol. 4, issue 9( version 6), september 2014, pp.115-119
also participated in many International Conferences and
4. A.V.N.R.Sai shiva, Arun kumar yadav, “Wireless sensor network
also published papers in many International Journals. His
application: smart meter using smart card”, International journal of
research interests are smart grid, Energy Management,
advances in science engineering and technology, issn: 2321-9009 volume-
Electric vehicles.
1, issue-3, jan.-2014.
5. Tomasz ząbkowski, Krzysztof gajowniczek , “Smart metering and data
privacy issues”, information systems in management (2013) vol. 2 (3) S.Senthilmurugan, received his diploma in
239−249. Electrical and Electronics from Alagappa
6. M.S.Jaganmohan, K.Manikandan, Easun reyrolle ltd., “Challenges in Polytechnic college Karaikudi .DOTE, Chennai,
smart meter design”, conference proceedings “power system protection and India in 2004. He received his B.E. degree in
automation”,December 2010,new delhi, india.
Electrical and Electronics Engineering from
7. Sumit Adikari, “Embedded systems for smart appliances and energy
management”,private limited,new delhi,3rd edition,2012,PHI. Alagapaa Chettiar College of Engineering and
8. K.S.K.Weranga, “Smart meter design and applications”,Springer science Technology, Karaikudi (Anna University), India in 2007.He
and media,2nd edition,2014,PEI. received his M.E. degree in Control and Instrumentation
9. A.Rebecca,Christine Hertzog, “Data privacy for smart meter”,Taylor and Engineering from Anna University, India in 2010. He is currently
Francis group,2nd edition,2015,PHI. pursuing Ph.D. in EEE from SRM Institute of Science of
10. SubhashisMaitraet al., “Embedded Energy Meter- A New Concept To
Measure The Energy Consumed By A Consumer And ToPay The Bill”, Technology, Kattankulathur, India. He is also an Assistant
978-1-4244-1762-9/08 IEEE 2008. Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronics
11. Smart Grid, Smart City Project (SGSCP), Grid Applications Stream: Fault Engineering in SRM Institute of Science and Technology,
Detection, Isolation and Restoration, Monitoring and Measurement Report, Kattankulathur, India. His
Report III, 2012. research interests are Control Systems, Smart Grid, Virtual
12. 1. Ekanayake, N. Jenkins, K. Liyanage, J. Wu, and A. Yokoyama, "Smart
Instrumentation, Sensor and Networks. He has also participated in
Grid: Technology and Applications," John Wiley and Sons. Ltd., 2012.
13. l. Steklac, and H. Tram, "How to Maximize the Benefits of AMR many National and International Conferences and also published
Enterprise-Wide," IEEE Rural Electric Power Conference. 2005. papers in many National and International Journals.
14. A. Morfey, Smart Metering Communications Issues and Technologies, lET
-Smart Metering 2009 -Making it Happen, Cambridge Consultants,
February, 2009
15. . Zheng, D. W. Gao, and L. Lin, "Smart Meters in Smart Grid: An
Overview", IEEE Green Technologies Conference, Denver, Colorado,
April 2013.

Published By:
Retrieval Number: F2289037619/19©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
1148 & Sciences Publication
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