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Electrical power consumption monitoring using a real-time system

Conference Paper · October 2012

DOI: 10.1109/STUDENT.2012.6408422

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2012 IEEE Conference on Sustainable Utilization and Development in Engineering and Technology (STUDENT)
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 6 - 9 October 2012

Electrical Power Consumption Monitoring using a Real-time System

11. Elamvazuthi, 2M K. A., Ahamed Khan ,

3Syajiq Basri Bin Shaari, 4Rajendran Sinnadurai and5MAmudha
1.3
Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS
Bandar Serilskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia
&
2.4 Univesiti Industri Selangor
Kampus Bestari Jaya, Jalan Timur Tambahan
Selangor Darul Ehsan
[email protected] (Corresponding author)

5Cosmopoinl,
Level 16-2, Wisma Sachdev,
Jln Raja Laul, 50350 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
amudha.khan@gmai l.com

Abslracl- This paper proposes the design of 3 phase power meter

which is difef rent from the conventional power meters. This
In recent years, research into energy saving has been increasing
meter is designed to be plugged-in directly into the power
in view of dealing with environmental problems and effectively
supply socket meanwhile the load will be plugged-in onto the
using energy resources. In a plant, power consumption
monitoring of individual inductive devices like motors would
power meter socket. This method will remove the dependency
have significant impact on energy savings in the long run.
of wires that are conventionally used, and suitable for
However, the current practice of measurement of power temporary or permanent installation. This solution allows the
consumption of the whole plant rather than individual devices user to measure power for single device so that power usage
results in penalties for energy losses due to variation of demand optimization can be done in a facility. In addition, the project
charges in a plant. Therefore, electrical power consumption also features data logging into a SD memory card. To achieve
monitoring on a real-time basis is essential to keep it from these features, Programmable Interface Controller (PIC) is
exceeding the critical demand level. Power meters are practical
interfaced with isolated current and voltage measurement
energy saving devices that can help monitor electricity
sensors. With programmed calibration the output linearity can
consumption in a plant. This paper discusses the development
and implementation of a micro-controller based portable digital
be manipulated.
power meter that has the capability to measure three phase
11. PRINCIPLES OF POWER CALCULATION
power supply for a single device in order to optimize power usage
in a plant. It could also be used as an educational tool for Basically the total instantaneous real power is the
undergraduate studies. summation of instantaneous power of each phase as shown
below [5].
Keywords- energy savings; electrical power consumption; power
monitoring; real-time system

1. INTRODUCTION
The simplified version of the three phase power formula which
In recent years, research into energy saving has been taken from single phase analysis is:
increasing in view of dealing with environmental problems
and effectively using energy resources. Research about power
meter design has been done by [IJ and [2-4]. Three phase (2)
electric power meter is a meter that measures power on a
where the cos e represents the power factor of the system. The
three phase power system. Research done by [I J implements
value is equal to which represents the angle difference
the single chip application with digital opto-coupler as the
between phase voltage and phase current or the impedance
isolation between the microcontroller circuit and the
angle. However the instantaneous measurement in equation I
measurement unit. The method proposed by [2J solely depends
is not desirable in metering because the value will keep on
on the AT89S52 chip to calculate power. However, it has no
changing over time. In addition, equation 2 cannot be
data logging feature. Approach taken by [4J is more on data
implemented directly to the PIC Thus, RMS value needs to be
logging which using GSM network to log the power
calculated. The single phase RMS power calculation is [5-6]:
measurement data. However it is limited to single phase
application.

978-1-4673-1705-4/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 295

 Inputs Microcontroller Outputs
p= (3)

Thus, equation 3 is suitable to be used in the power meter. So,

the total RMS three phase real power can be calculated as
follows:

1 �N ( V · 2
)
1+N i.. n=O an Lan +
(4)
However, the equation 4 does not provide information about
the system power factor. In order to grab power factor value,
Power Meter
apparent power (S) value needs to be calculated Power factor
(p.j) can be determined by following equation:
Figure I System Configuration

RMS
p. f = cos C/J = P (5) Fig. 2 shows the developed prototype. It consists of main
SRMS
Apparent power for a single phase system can be determined switch, backlight switch, power and sensor indicator,
by general equation in equation 6. Meanwhile equations 7, 8 navigation buttons, SD card slot and battery casing.
and 9 represent RMS apparent power formula for phase a,
phase b and phase c respectively:
POWe1.and
S10 = vaia (6)
s�nsorindicator

Sa0 = _1_IN (v ) 2 X
1 IN
)2
1+N n=O an 1+N n=O CLan
(7) Navigation Buttons 4mmSoeht

_1_IN (V ) 2 1 IN ( . 2
Sb0 = X )
1+N n=O bn 1+N n=O Lbn
(8) SDCMdSlot ----t

Se0 = _1_IN (V ) 2 X
1 IN
)2
1+N n=O en 1+N n=O CLen
(9)

So, the total apparent power is the summation of the apparent Figure 2 Prototype

powers from all phases. By having power factor information,

the reactive power (Q) can be calculated Equation J 0 Internally, it contains the microcontroller circuitry for each
represents the general equation for reactive power meanwhile phase. In actual implementation, the circuit needs to be
equation J J is reactive power equation derived from previous duplicated for three set which represent measurement for
equations. phase A, phase B and phase C. The circuit is designed to
measure phase to phase voltage. Thus, the combination of the
Qn = IVnl11nlsinC/J (10)
1PRMS duplicates will form delta connected measurement. This
Qn = IVnlllnlsin(cos- SRMS ) (1 J)
measurement technique can be used only for a balance 3
phase network.
lll. MA TERIALS AND METHODS

A. Hardware
B. Software
The system configuration is as shown in Fig. J. It consists
Software includes main program, SPI module program for
of microcontroller and other supporting components to enable
data writes into SD card, interrupt, LCD display control
the power meters features.
program, EEPROM read and write program and power
calculation program. The program flow chart is shown in Fig.
3 [7].
The power meter is able to do initialization during each
power up. The initialization includes initialization of certain
variables, read calibration and logging configuration from
EEPROM, set IIOs direction and initialize TlMERO interrupt.

296
This power meter is designed with four different modes. c. TestingMethods
During beginning of each loop, user buttons are scanned to Figs 4 to 6 show the prototype test setup, LVDAM-EMS
determine which mode to be run and displayed on the LCD. data acquisition interface and four pole 3 phase synchronous
Throughout the loop, TIMERO overflow interrupt will run for motor respectively.
each J second to update the EPOCH formatted time variable.
The time is important because it is needed in logging time and
date stamp. In addition, the interrupt also handles the logging
interval variable. The interval will determine the time to 4 Data
3 Pha .. POW�M=tff
record the measured power data into SD card through SPI 5 Acquisition
p OWM supply + (prototypal
communication protocol. current
6
meter

+
l\ B C

+
Load
(Motor)
+

Read EEPROM Data. Acquisition

Data

Figure 4. Prototype Test Setup

Initialize
Configurations

pello
Bidirectional
inputs Pon
Button Scan
(USB)

Current Interface
Get AID Converter
inputs Power
Output
Supply

Input

Figure 5. L VDAM-EMS Data Acquisition Inteiface

Rotor

�ofotor Supply
Mode Specific Input
Actions

Return Button
Scan

Figure 6. Four Pole 3 Phase Synchronous Motor

Figure 3. Flow Chart of Main Program

Tests were done using variable three phase power supply
(O-240V/50Hz) and with a four pole synchronous motor as the
load. The motor is rated to be supplied by 380V and at 0. 52A.
Prior to the test, the power meter is calibrated using its
internal calibration program in PIC The measurement result
is compare with the laboratory data acquisition (DA),

297
 LVDAM-EMS The test records the input voltage and current measurement data is recorded without decimal point. Thus, all
into the motor for all phases. Voltage and current are taken readings need to be multiplies with 10-2
because both values will be used to calculate other power
qualities component such as apparent power, real power and
reactive power. power Meter Data LogS
ver s i on 0.71

unix Time vph1 vph2 vphl 'ph1 Iph2 Iphl

IV RESULTS AND DISC USSION 978310981 312 313 313 2 2 2

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978311041 39S 394 39S 2 2 2
978311101 . 3S5 3S2 2 2 2
978311161 338 338 338 1 1 1
978310981 5301 5254 5249 42 3. 41

Table 1, Table 11 and Table 111 show the phase A, phase B ,

978311041 5300 5312 5314 1> 12 12

, ,
978311101 5348 5348 5348 21 . 18
978311161 232 227 231 4
7
and phase C measurement result respectively. 978311221
978311281
316
6277
316
6275
316
6282 is
6
17
8
16

, ,
978311341 6265 6275 6281 is 17 16

, , ,
978311401 242 238 242 4
1304298624 241 243 >SO

TABLE I. PHASE A M EASUREMENT RESULT

Figure 7. Data Logged in the SD Card

No Volta2e (V) Current rnA)

PM DA Error(%) PM DA Error(%) V CONCLUSION
I 57. 1 57.28 0. 314246 0. 12 0./3 7. 692308
Based on the prototype test result the power meter currently
2 73. 8 73.34 -0. 62722 0. 10 0.098 -2. 04082
3 105. 34 106 0. 622642 0. 10 0.095 -5.26316 is capable to measure apparent power, voltage and current
with acceptable error. The raw analog value from the AID
converter readings can be read by software to calculate RMS
TABLE II. PHASE B M EASUREMENT RESULT real power, reactive power, and power factor. The power
meter also is expected to be able to accept measurement
No Voltage (V) Current rnA)
PM DA Error(%) PM DA Error(%) values from any other voltage and current measurement
I 57. 36 57.04 -0.56101 0. 12 0.129 6. 976744 technique due to its programmed calibration feature which is
2 73.16 73. 68 0. 705755 0. 10 0.099 -1.0101 capable to set new input and output relationship. Therefore,
3 106. /7 106.18 0.009418 0. 10 0.095 -5.26316 this meter would be able to be tested in real industrial facility
soon. However, the current power meter circuit configuration
TABLE l//. PHASE C MEASUREMENT RESULT
limits the power meter to measure a balance three phase
No Voltage (V) Current rnA) power system only.
PM DA Error (%) PM DA Error(%)
I 57. 3 57. 36 0.104603 0. 12 0.129 6. 976744 REFERENCES
2 73. 2 73.74 0.732303 0. 1 0.099 -1.0101
3 105. 95 106. 5 0.516432 0. 1 0.095 -5.26316
[11 Jishun Jiang and Lanlan Yu, "Design of a New Three-phase Multi-rate
Wall-hour Meter Based on AT89S52, "isid, 2009 Second International
By analyzing the results from Table 1 to 111, it can be seen Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Design,vol. I, pp. 416-
419, 2009.
that the voltage measurements have low error which is less
[21 Pasdar, A. and Mirzakuchaki, s.; , "Three phase power line balancing
than 1% However, current measurements have high error at
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unstable measurement. There are many reasons that might [31 Shun-Yu Chan; Shang-Wen Luan; Jen-Hao Teng; Ming-Chang Tsai; ,
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Fig. 7 shows the data logged into the SD card. The data
[61 RF Cafe - RMS Voltage and Average Power Equation Formula. (2011).
that logged into SD card is stored into file named Retrieved January 25, 2011, from RF Cafe:
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