Project Proposal

Level 3

Automated Electricity Billing System

Student Name Index Number

Supervisor Name

Degree of Bachelor of Information Technology (External) Faculty of Information Technology University of Moratuwa Year 2011

Project Proposal
Level 3

Automated Electricity Billing System

Student Name Index Number

Supervisor Name

Degree of Bachelor of Information Technology (External) Faculty of Information Technology University of Moratuwa Year 2011

Table of Contents
Page
1. Introduction 2. Background & motivation 3. Problem in brief 4. Aim & Objectives 5. Proposed solution 6. Resource requirements

1 1 1 2 2 3 3 4

Reference Appendix- Plan of Action

Introduction The electricity bill preparation is actually a complex and it is not a cost effective process in Sri Lanka due to the conventional electricity billing system which requires an assigned person to visit each house and read the electricity meters manually. In addition, numerous problems have been identified by the meter readers in reading electricity meters manually. Further, these readings are used to bill calculations. Hence, this manual system can become very time consuming and cause human error which also brings forth opportunities for corruption done by the human meter readers. Therefore, the billing system can become inaccurate and inefficient. This project aims to develop an automated meter reading system to read analog KWh meters automatically through the remote central location and calculate the electricity bills. PIC microcontroller based hardware device is used to control and read the analog KWh meters. Online web based systems are used to control each meter and calculate the electricity bills.

Background and Motivation The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) uses smart metering systems only for bulk supply due to the high cost of the Metering System (Nearly 150000/= per 1 smart meter). Normal house hold meters are analog and it reads meters on a monthly basis. Further, this analog KWh meters cannot record time based meter reading and hence CEB cannot make time base billing packages (Peak, off peak etc). In addition to the above, users pay bills after 2 or 3 months. If CEB want to disconnect the facility they have to visit the site. Further, many other countries use automated meter reading systems and gives more cost effective facilities to their electricity users such as pre paid facilities, time based payment methods etc. The present system of electricity meter readings from domestic customers are very time consuming and expensive. To enter these readings to their billing systems they use data entries. In this current system CEB have to wait 2 3 months to collect their bills. Problem in Brief Manual analog KWh meter reading system of the Ceylon Electricity Board is very time consuming and expensive.

4.

Aim & Objectives Aim: The aim of this project is to design and develop a system to read analog KWh meter and calculate the required bills Objectives: Critical review of the manual analog KWh meter and bill preparing process Critical study of PIC Micro controllers, web technologies PHP and MySQL Design and develop a system for solving the problem Evaluation of the proposed system Preparation of final documentation 5. Proposed Solution

Analog meters are conventionally used. These meter readings are calculated under the basis of the number of rotation made by the rotating disc. This proposed solution uses PIC Microcontroller to read data from analog meter using optical technology and get time details to the PIC by using RTC chip and also EPROM connected to the microcontroller to data logging purpose. This embedded system and central server communicates using the PLC method. Figure 1 shows the basic design of the proposed solution.
Meter

Power line RELAY

EPROM

KWh mete r

Microcontroll er

Real-time clock

Communication link Web Server Control Application

Databa se

Figure 1: Design of the proposed solution

The system has been developed as an online system with PHP and MySQL databases. Data can be collected any desired time intervalsuch as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis. As there are no human interventions in the entire process, there is no chance of human error and corruption. If the server request readings, microcontroller sends response consist with new readings to the server with the help of communication medium. In the server it decodes that and gets details. After it analyses by the server software that received data stored to the relevant databases and assigned to the relevant accounts. This system can set to power interruption limitations to the users. When that A/C reaches to define level it automatically send warning massage about power interruption. In addition to the above, proposed system provides facilities to electricity users to get details about their electricity usage and authorized peoples can login to the system and get the relevant reports.

6. Resource requirements

Server (3GHz, 2GB Ram, 512 GB HDD...) PHP with My SQL Analog KWh meter PIC microcontroller 2 communications devises(PLC) Optical encoder, Relay, power supply, RTC, EPROM etc

References [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter [2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/energy/smartmeters.html [3] http://www.tech-faq.com/automated-meter-reading.html [4] http://www.ogc.gov.uk/procurement_solutions_automatic_meter_reading.asp [5] http://www.itnews.com.au/News/160398,auditor-general-slams-victorian-smartmeters.aspx [6] http://www.powermin.nic.in/distribution/automatic_meter_reading.htm
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[7] http://www.archnetco.com/english/product/product_s1.htm Appendix- Plan of Action

Table1: Gantt chart of the proposed system.