Open Power Monitor

Well this my attempt to create my own Open Power Monitor System.

The main purpose of the project is to create a power monitoring system that would send electricity usage of a particular user to a web server

• ANIKET MAITHANI• AMITY SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

Cooking a dinner, heating a house, lighting a street, keeping a hospital open, running a factory – all these require energy. Energy is thus at the heart of everybody's quality of life and a crucial factor for economic competitiveness and employment. But global population and energy needs increase hand-in-hand and the current fossil-fuel based energy system is not sustainable as it contributes substantially to climate change and depends heavily on imports from very few countries. Answers to the dual challenge of satisfying increasing energy needs and combating climate change at the same time are urgently needed and energy research can play an essential role. India can not move towards sustainable growth without radical changes in the way it generates and uses energy.

Energy

Energy Crisis in India

An energy crisis is any great bottleneck (or price rise) in the supply of energy resources to an economy.

Energy is as important as fuel as it not only powers up our home or drives cars for us, but it is the back bone of nation’s economy.

Copyright BBC NEWS

Why Energy Monitoring System?

When energy consumption becomes available for viewing and analysis, people tend to find natural ways to reduce their own consumption It alerts them to situations where they may be acting in an unintentionally wasteful manner. In households, this reduction can be as much as 7% when the power meter is placed in a visible location within the house.

That is the benefit a single meter can do, imagine an entire system dedicated exclusively to energy monitoring and analysis.

Block Diagram of My Idea

Designing Part

Getting Started

First Part of my device :- CURRENT TRANSFORMER

DIGITAL CLAM(CT) METER

Current Transformer

Current Transformer

A current transformer (CT) is used for measurement of alternating electric currents.

A current transformer produces a reduced current accurately proportional to the current in the circuit, which can be conveniently connected to measuring and recording instruments.

Before we proceed further ….

The readings which CT will detect will be analog in nature and I need to convert that into digital data so that I can transfer it to COM.

Difference between Analog & Digital?!

Analog signal is a continuous signal which represents physical measurements.

Digital signals are discrete time signals generated by digital modulation.

Uses continuous range of values to represent information

Uses discrete or discontinuous values to represent information

Analog technology is cheaper but there is a limitation of size of data that can be transmitted at a given time.

Digital technology has revolutionized the way most of the equipments work. Data is converted into binary code and then reassembled back into original form at reception point

Analog Signal

Digital Signal

Now comes Arduino NG ATMEGA8 into action, this is probably one of the initial model of Arduino family, and it’s quite OLD SCHOOL, but very effective. As you must be aware that Arduino comes with built in A2D converter. So I coded my program into the Arduino using GUI based program for Arduino Embeddedment that comes in SYNAPTIC PACAKGE MANAGER IN UBUNTU.

So I added few more components, thanks to openpowermonitor.org that provided me a bit of guidance! And voila my project was ready. Just for my convenience I added an LED 4 bit display!

Detailed Block Diagram

Not over yet!!

Since I have a serial to USB converter, in my main system, I am writing a python script that would enable data to be fetched from COM port and then I can send that data to a web-server.

Moreover the work is still in progressAny help regarding this is welcome

Thank You

Code and detailed wiki will be uploaded on GitHub very soon

You can follow the page on facebookwww.facebook.com/just4funelectronics Moreover you can also follow me on twitter

@2aniketmaithani

That’s all folks, anything to add, brush please give your suggestions