An IoT based smart energy meter for the idle use of electricity: An industry perspective

Abstract

In the perspective of the Bangladesh garment industry, a vast amount of power is wastage due to forgetting in turning off the machines at break time or other reason. Also, the existing prepaid meter doesn't include any system to understand the wastage of the power and control the machines remotely. This research demonstrates a smart energy meter to understand the idle use of the loads and control the loads remotely. This efficient and cost-effective system offers an accurate estimation of the consumed power and cost, reducing the labor cost. A microcontroller is involved in calculating the voltage, current, energy and cost. After deploying in the garment industry, the first few daysthe systemmeasures the consumed amount of power by different loads and store it. From these values, an average value is estimated as a threshold value for that load. In case of exceeding the threshold value of this load, an auto-notification is sent to the authority via a GSM module. Being notified about the excessive usage via that load, the authority confirms about the machine is in working state or idle state through announcing in a microphone. According to the response, the authority takes the decision and sent a specific command through SMS to the system. The GSM module converts the SMS into a signal that is supplied to the microcontroller to turn off the load. In consequence of this feature, the system will assist the authority of the garment industry to be economical in power consumption, and the amount of power wastage will be reduced drastically.