An IOT-Enabled Generator for Power Monitoring and Load Management with Power Factor Improvement

Abstract

The quality of power supply and reliability play a vital role in the smooth operation and maintenance of commercial use. These requirements have significant applications when dealing with residential areas, hospitals, industries, educational sectors, banks and airports, etc. In this regard, backup diesel generators are considered the most important source for an uninterrupted supply of electricity. However, there is an emergent need to avoid sudden shutdown of generators in the events of overload, shortage of fuel flow, service interval and lagging of power factor. These common problems can be addressed through monitoring of power generator parameters, for instance, real time remote monitoring to measure the health of the generator, the problem of load management due to high demand of power during peak hours and power factor improvement due to exceeding inductive load. In this paper, our proposed architecture—based on an IOT solution—consists of different sensors, namely a current transformer for measuring load, fuel gauge for fuel level monitoring, and temperature measurement with the energy module to determine the power factor of the system. Our proposed system is operated and tested on a real trolley-mounted 25 KVA generator.