A GSM module-based smart electric meter reader

Abstract

The traditional and estimated billing system of electric energy consumed in most part of Sub-Saharan Africa has become a lingering issue to the electricity consumers. This has therefore necessitated the advent of smart electric meters. In this work, we propose a smart electric meter reader that provides an efficient and economically viable technique for measuring the consumption of electricity. This proposed method tends to solve many issues of the traditional reading system, such as reading efficiency, accuracy, and the elimination of human interface. Our proposed method, consisting of a GSM module, is used to wirelessly communicate the smart meter readings to the electricity provider and the consumer in form of a text message. The results obtained from the evaluation of this work show that our proposed method has improved the accuracy of the meter reading process for proper accountability.