Cost effective wireless network based automated energy meter monitoring system for Sri Lanka perspective

Many researchers and developers are focusing their curiosity on designing and implementing industrial automated systems based on modern wireless communication technologies. In the most of the developing countries like Sri Lanka, the effort of collecting electricity, water and other utility meter reading of every consumer is a very difficult task. It requires a great number of labors for collecting and processing the meters readings. This paper presents an implementation methodology of an Automated Energy Meter Monitoring System (AEMMS) based on Global System Mobile (GSM) and Zig-Bee technology incorporate with microcontroller that aims to diminish this difficult task by introducing an automated process for collecting meter reading data from energy meter in Sri Lanka. Use of GSM network as a medium for AEMMS establishes a cost-effective and two-way connected wireless data communication between energy provider and consumer’s energy meter. Zig-Bee technology provides capability to establish fully coverage in the country by filling the area in which GSM coverage is absence. The AEMMS continuously monitors the energy system and sends information of energy usage and theft detection alert to utility company via Short Message Service (SMS) as well as it sends energy usage bill and power cut alert to the customer via SMS and Email. For these facilities, this system contains a software tool in a server computer at energy service provider to facilitate the utility bill generation and data communication.