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

POWER
SOURCE

UTILITY
CARD

MICRO
CONTROLLER

POWER
SWITCHING
SECTION

POWER
DESTINATON

The metering system

Utilities and revenue system

Present electricity billing system
Advantages and disadvantages
Present prepayment metering system
Advantages and disadvantages
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 C
LCD Lampex 162
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 Version 3

Flash
Orcad

Prepayment energy meter using

smart card
Energy meter

Opto
coupler

Relay

Load

LCD
8051
microcontroller

MC

EEPROM

Power supply

Smart card
Reader/writer

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