ISSN 2384-5058
Abstract: Energy meters have long been used to present the quantity of electrical energy consumed by users in a given time. In buildings where partitioned apartments are leased to different individuals, the individuals are usually demanded to share an energy supply meter with several other individuals in other apartments in the same building. However, the uniform billing from the distribution companies does not account for the difference in the energy consumed by the diverse users of the energy meter. As such, users are required to equally split the bill and not pay in proportion to the energy individually consumed. This disparity often leads to disputes between tenants, the unlawful power theft in the form of meter tampering, and unpaid bills. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper designs a low-cost, single-phase, three-user electrical energy meter to present the electrical energy consumed by each user and connect the electrical energy meter that displays the energy consumption of each user connected to the meter. The design utilised an ACS712 (current sensor) and a voltage sensor, which helped in sampling the current and voltage, respectively, and a microcontroller (ATMega328p), as well as other peripheral devices. The construction and testing, conducted for 60 minutes with loads of 1000W, 160W, and 200W, yielded results of 1KWhr, 0.16KWhr, and 0.20KWhr, respectively, at 230V, with corresponding currents of 4.35A, 0.70A, and 0.87A.
Keywords: Energy usage, Three-user energy meter, power theft reduction.