Smart meter for power factor enhancement in real-time

The growing global population is driving a greater increase in the demand for electricity. Due to the increase in the emission of Green House Gases (GHG) by the present electrical grid, utilization of renewable energy sources in the power chain has become the need of the hour. Today, the legacy grids are under pressure to deliver the growing demand for power. Smart grids provide a solution for the global demand of reliable electrical energy. An essential constituent of the smart grid is Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) technology since it grants utilities with a pool of new information that helps in optimizing business operations. Smart meters provide real-time registration of electricity use, offers the possibility to read the meter locally and remotely and it is capable of limiting or cutting off the energy use. This paper attempts to create a system that helps industrial and residential consumers in identifying wasteful energy usage and thereby mitigating electricity use. The system measures all the power parameters like instantaneous voltages, instantaneous currents and power factor up to 0.9 and thereby distributes quality power to the end users. Also it automatically reads the power quality and transmits the same to the server (utility) via ZigBee.