Smart Internet of Things Power Meter for Industrial and Domestic Applications

Abstract

Considering the widespread presence of switching devices on the power grid (including renewable energy system inverters), network distortion is more prominent. To maximize network efficiency, our goal is to minimize these distortions. Measuring the voltage and current total harmonic distortion (THD) using power meters and other specific equipment, and assessing power factor and peak currents, represents a crucial step in creating an efficient and stable smart grid. In this paper, we propose a power meter capable for measuring both standard electrical parameters and power quality parameters such as the voltage and current total harmonic distortion factors. The resulting device is compact and DIN-rail-mountable, occupying only three modules in an electrical cabinet. It integrates both wired and wireless communication interfaces and multiple communication protocols, such as Modbus RTU/TCP and MQTT. A microSD card can be used to store the device configuration parameters and to record the measured values in case of network fault events, the device’s continuous operation being ensured by the integrated backup battery in this situations. The device was calibrated and tested against three industrial power meters: Siemens SENTRON PAC4200, Janitza UMG-96RM, and Phoenix Contact EEM-MA400, obtaining an overall average measurement error of only 1.22%.