We are living in an advanced world where everything is technology. Nowadays you can purchase power units for domestic or industrial use at the comfort of your cellphone. This is almost bringing to an end the old habit of employing people who are tasked with meter reading to determine energy consumed within a given period. Thanks to the existence of digital energy meters. The technology have gone even a notch higher creating possibilities of controlling energy consumptions at will by switching off and on lights, and socket outlets using your cellphone or automatically when power is being misused. Automated power control system is based on set instructions. Here, we are going to learn the technological possibilities relating to energy consumption control, based on automated power control systems.
Part of digital energy meter
The automated power control system in this case has a microcontroller, a database management system (DBMS) and a cellphone as the user-interface. The DBMS has memory to store the instructions from the user. These are the instructions to be executed when the power consumption exceeds set limit. Those instructions can be fed into the system using the owner’s cellphone or personal computer it is linked to. The memory has a cloud back up for safety in cases of cyber attack and memory hitches. The stored instructions can be changed or modified at will to suit energy conservation criteria. The microcontroller in this situation is used to monitor power usage be it in the appliances connected to the socket outlets, lamps and water heater system. Microcontroller is connected to all the switches of the lamps, the socket outlets and the energy meter.
Microcontroller is interfaced in such a way it is able to disconnect any lamp, socket outlet and the water heater from the power supply. This is based on the instructions from the DBMS. For instance, the user can decide to switch off lamps that are on and they are not being used at the moment, just through his cellphone anywhere. The same applies to the socket outlets that are not in use. The microcontroller sends signals to the DBMS which in turn relays the information to the user via his cellphone. The DBMS also receives instructions from the user, stores it and instructs the microcontroller on what to do as requested. The microcontroller responds by either switching on or off, the lamps or sockets as per the instructions. The cellphone has an application with features for switching on and off lamps, sockets and water heater system. This app acts as the frontend of the DBMS. DBMS is the backend of the entire system. The app is designed for a specific user taking into consideration his or her wiring design. If the user is living in a 3-bedroom house with a kitchen, living room and sanitation area, the app contains the wiring plan of the whole house. Stating clearly where all the sockets, lamps, consumer unit and distribution board are located. If you want to switch on lamp in the living room, you can do it in a click of a button. The app also shows the state of all the lamps and sockets in the house: the ones that are on and those that are off. The period they have been on together with the total energy consumed during that time.
The microcontroller is also connected to the energy meter. Therefore, it is capable of regulating the energy usage. If instructions are set in the DBMS that energy usage by the cooker should not exceed 10 Kwh in a day, if by any chance the cooker hits the 10 Kwh mark, the cooker is disconnected from the power supply automatically and can only be connected back by the user. The energy meter is capable of determining the used energy by getting the product of power and time. Power is the rate at which energy is transformed into other forms. The formula for calculating energy, E = Power (P) × Time (T) in Kwh. If for an instance, an iron box is connected to a socket for three hours and the voltage drop across it is 240V when current of 20A flows in the circuit, the energy used by the iron box is: E = P (Watts) × T (hours). Power (P) in Watts is given by P = VI = 240 × 20. Therefore, E = VIT=PT= 240 × 20 × 3 = 14600 Kwh. This is the amount of energy that will be displayed on the cellphone of the user if he or she requests for a breakdown. The user can also program the system in such a way he or she receives notification when any appliance of high power rating is connected to any of the socket outlets. The same applies to the bulbs.
The advantages of this system are:
1. It regulates energy usage thus eliminating misuse of power.
2. It is an automated system making it more convenient in switching on and off lamps and sockets.
3. It is more convenient as the system can be operated anywhere.
The disadvantages of the system are:
1. It is more expensive as many technicalities are used to make it functional.
2. The system can fail resulting to several inconveniences
3. The system can be prone to hackers if it is not properly secured.
In conclusion, I can say that this system is good especially in this digital world but complementary system also needs to be in place to curb any inconvenience that may arise in case of system failure.
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