Prepaid Energy Meter using Smart Cards

Overview Efficient scheme of electricity billing Functionality Beneficial to consumers, power plant, revenue, power sector reforms

General block diagram UTILITY CARD MICRO CONTROLLER POWER SWITCHING SECTION DESTINATON SOURCE

The metering system Utilities and revenue system Present electricity billing system • Advantages and disadvantages Present prepayment metering system • Market scopes

Prepayment metering system Improved operational efficiencies Reduced financial risks Better customer service Market drives: Power sector reforms, Increasing non-technical reforms, opportunities in markets Market restraints: Customer behavior, Initial investment, rapid tech changes, uncertainty over success

Recent initiatives and plans South Africa and England Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Singapore, Iran West Bengal– Sundrebans Tata power – in Delhi and Jamshedpur Mumbai BEST service US patents released

Present prepayment system Difficult to install and costly No communication back to utility No knowledge on consumption and tampering info on utility

Smart cards Same size as a standard credit card A microchip embedded in a plastic card to store information Latest silicon technology, does not require use of batteries The chip can be programmed to carry out specific functions

Advantages & applications of smart cards Convenience, portability, capacity, durability, security and ability to check forgery ID card, log card, garage card, hotel key card, health care, vehicle id, banking, prepayment electricity

The proposed system Use of prepayment system Smart card usage Communication with utility system 3-tier implementation Supply management with added security

Advantages Reducing reading expenses Bad debt collection A/c transfer expenses & credit debt expenses Greater awareness on consumers consumption habits Improved cash flow management

Large scale implementation User has a ID card Gives money to ATM and gets the smart card credited Customer terminal and service terminal manage electric supply and comm. With service Utility services update with the data and consumer behavior

Hardware Requirements AT89S51 µC LCD Lampex 16ₓ2 SLE4442 smart card reader/writer, MAX 232 EEPROM AT24C256 Relay and Power supply Optocoupler cosmo 2010 4N35 Meter and load DB9 connector, resistors, capacitors and sip resistors

Software requirements Keil C compiler µVersion 3 µFlash Orcad

Prepayment energy meter using smart card Relay Load Energy meter 8051 microcontroller Opto coupler LCD MC Smart card Reader/writer EEPROM Power supply

Schematic diagram Port 1 is connected LCD Port 3 is connected to EEPROM Port 0 to relay Smart card module is connected via DB9 connector and max232 to microcontroller Meter is connected to load and optocoupler and one end of load to relay.

Working The consumer inserts the pre-paid card in the energy meter The value in the card is transferred to the meter and load is ON The meter keeps track of the number of units consumed as per the slab rate and updates it to the controller via cosmo 2010 When the value in the card comes to electricity supply is cut off

Conclusion A better solution for utility management and beneficial to consumers, power reforms and market. A prototype for customer terminal is successfully constructed