Wireless Communication System for Energy Meter Reading

Energy meter reading is a tedious and an expensive affair. The meter reader has to go and take the reading manually to issue the bill, which will later be entered in the software to automate the billing and payment system. It would have reduced the laborious task and financial wastage if can automate the manual meter reading process and bill data entry process. This paper proposes a new network communication system for energy meter reading by integrating communication technology and software system along with the existing meters. A wireless or wired communication system will be integrated with electronic energy meter to have remote access over the usage of electricity. Even though they are two different modules, energy meter deliver the reading details as on when it demands by the communication system. The communication system is further connected with electricity regional/sub-regional office, which will rather act as a base station. Instead of creating a separate communication system and backbone, any of the secure existing communication service infrastructures may also be utilized to avoid any initial investments. The communication channel is identified by the consumer´s number and it is secured by any cryptographic standards. Base office can verify the energy meters performance by checking the day to day consumption of energy. This will also help to avoid any tampering or break down of energy meter.