Smart Grid Implementation to Overcome Electric

Power System Stress Conditions through Demand

Response in Pakistan
Misbah Rani1, Fareeha Ramzan1, Atif Javed1, Adil Farooq2, Tahir Nadeem Malik1
1
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan
2
Deptartment of Electronic Engineering, International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan
misbahrani83@gmail.com, adil.farooq@iiu.edu.pk

Abstract— This paper focuses on the design and
implementation of the Smart Grid (SG) through efficient use of
the accessible resources with slight modification. The main part
of the our work is the fabrication of a cost effective GMS based
smart energy meter which displays readings on LCD, the instant
power consumption at user side, sends and receives information
from Grid through GSM modem. The power consumption on
grid station of each user is continuously monitored and recorded
through SMS caster and C# based Graphical User Interface. A
specified load is permitted to each user; if the load exceeds the
limit then a warning is send to the specific user by SMS Caster to
reduce the load within specified limits to avoid electricity cut off
after 10 minutes. Home Energy Management unit is designed and
fabricated for easy monitoring and control of house hold
appliances on the Graphical User Interface to facilitate the user,
it involves the implementation of IEEE 802.14.5 ZigBee protocol.
We present in this paper a practical implementable smart
grid solution in the Pakistani scenario. It entails real time
monitoring and control, as well as efficient use of electric
power providing full duplex communication between grid and
user side. A momentous reduction in load shedding is achieved
through a secured wireless home energy management system.
Smart Grid approach in this paper involves peak load
reduction by assigning each user a specified energy
consumption rate per minute which is remotely monitored at
Grid Station through Automatic Meter Interface (AMI). This
allows a fair share of the available energy for all the users. A
warning is generated whenever the demand exceeds the
specified limit. The Block Diagram of implemented system is
shown in Figure 1.

Index Terms— Smart Grid, Energy Meter, GSM, AMI

WAN IEEE 802.14.5
GPRS ZigBee Protocol

I. INTRODUCTION
Electricity is an important element in the economic
development and national growth of a country. Load shedding
has exceeded 20 hours per day especially in rural areas since
2009. Pakistan has a power shortfall of 4000~5000MW [1].
This power shortage is due to rapid growth in demand and a
meager development on the electricity generation and supply.
Ever-increasing demand is causing more frequent stress
conditions on the Electric Power system, which results in large- Smart
area black-outs. The load shedding occurs when the demand Grid station Energy
Meter
AMR (Automatic HEM (Home Energy
exceeds supply, mostly during peak hours. Demand response Monitoring Meter Reading) Management) Unit

(DR) can tackle such unexpected supply-limit events by

selectivity curtailing system loads, whereby regaining balance
between supply and demand [2][3].
Smart metering is the most reliable solution to tackle the
above mentioned problem in Pakistan. The Islamabad Electric
Supply Company (IESCO) and Lahore Electric Supply
Company (LESCO) have launched the projects of installing
smart meters to ensure correct meter readings and address the
problem of overbilling. Smart meter can send the energy
consumpution information every second, enabling remote
monitoring, eliminating manual meter reading, and take cares
of the factor of human error and corruption.
Fig. 1 Smart Grid Block Diagram
Smart Grid comprises of following three parts:
1. Advance Meter Infrastructure (AMI): A GSM based
smart energy meter, which monitors the energy consumption
through Energy meter IC, displays on LCD, sends and received
information on the Grid and cut off supply if exceeded after a
warning.
2. Load Monitoring at Grid: The energy consumption
information received via SMS from Smart meters is analyzed
through SMS Caster and C# based GUI. Billing information,
record maintenance and warning generation tasked are
performed.

978-1-4673-8753-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

 3. Cost Effective Home Energy Management (HEM)
Unit: A graphical user interface is developed to monitor and
control power-intensive loads based on priority preference
through IEEE 802.14.5 ZigBee Protocol and Arduino.
The organization of paper is as follow. Section II explains
the AMI, section III describes the implementation of Grid
Station, section IV explains HEM, section V gives the Peak
load reduction through demand response, section VI shows the
results and discussion, section VII and VIII gives the
conclusion and references.
II. ADVANCE METER INFRASTRUCTURE (AMI)
An advanced two-way AMI communication system is
implemented to collect and measure energy consumption for
billing and statistical purposes. It works on the principle of full
duplex communication between the user side and the grid
station [4]. There are various techniques for employing AMI
such as Power Line Communication, Ethernet etc. [5][6]. Here,
in this paper we have used GSM for remote data access and
monitoring as shown in Figure 2.
We have designed and implemented the following
modules:
A. Cost Effective Smart Meter Design
This is designed using an energy meter IC ADE7757 which
collects the load consumption information through Current
Transformer (CT) and Potential transformer (PT). The high
frequency CF logic output provides instantaneous real power
information in the form of pulses [7]. Pulses are counted by a
microcontroller ATmega32, which displays the energy
consumption information on the LCD and sends to Grid via
GSM modem.
B. Hardware design of Single phase Energy Meter
The designed single phase energy meter is shown in Figure
3. A resister is shunted with ADE7757 IC which operates on
single input AC supply through capacitor divider network. A
5V regulated DC supply is fed to IC1 from VDD[8][9].

Start

Smart Energy
Relay Operation
Meter i.e. MCU
Sound Alarm for Supply Cut-
(ATMega 32)
OFF
and GMS
Fig. 3 Energy Meter PCB

C. Smart Energy Meter:

Send The controller ATMega32 sends information of energy
Receives
Information to consumption via GSM Module SIM 900D directly to grid as
Display on LCD Commands from
Grid via GSM shown in Figure 3.
Grid
Module

No

User Consults HEM

Grid Station Yes Unit for Controlling
Monitoring and Monitoring
Load

Yes

User Limits
Load is within
Load within 10
Limit Fig. 4 Controller Interface with LCD and GSM Module
minutes

D. Experimental Setup:
No Square CF output are fed to the controller pin of
ATMega32. A Timer in counter mode counts the pulses. A
15W bulb is connected as load. The pulses passed through the
Warning is Sent to
User via SMS Caster
bulb are counted for calibrating the meter. We repeated this
experiment for two other bulbs of 30W, three bulbs of 45W
and four bulbs of total 60W acting as loads.
Fig. 2 Designed AMI
 Table 1. Pulse count with increasing load
Load in W Pulses/min
15 60
30 120
45 180
60 240

Meter Constant:
According to the above results the meter constant is:
1KWH=240,000pulses.
0.001KWH=240pulses.
E. Energy Consumption and Transmission:
The energy consumed is shown on the LCD and data is Fig. 6 House Load information
send by GSM after every 1 minute on receiving the
“$STATUS” command from the grid station. IV. PEAK LOAD REDUCTION THROUGH DEMAND RESPONSE
Demand response is a way to meet a certain load target
III. WORKING OF IMPLEMENTED GRID STATION specified by grid. The user then decides based on priority to
The Grid Station consists of GUI, reading the .csv control the load. This is contrary to Direct Load Control where
generated by SMS caster and SMS Caster is interfaced with Q appliances are switched from Grid and in case of overload and
Mobile A5. user has no control[10][11]. Table 2 shows peak load duration
A. SMS Caster setting in different countries.
The Smart Meter has a SIM number stored in the contact
Table 2. Peak Load Duration [12][13]
of the ‘SMSCaster E-Marketer GSM Enterprise v3.6’. It
Country Load (%) Time (%)
deletes the messages received on the cell phone and stores
USA 20 5
them in a “.csv file”. This file is further accessed in the GUI
Australia 15 <1
to develop the data base. The responder is enabled for auto Egypt 15 <1
replying of “Warning” in case of the overload command Saudi Arabia 5 0.5
received from the Smart Energy Meter.
B. Graphical User Interface
It is observed that the Peak Load happens only for short
A GUI is developed in Microsoft visual studio to read the duration in the day. Therefore, by reducing the Peak load, the
.csv file and develop a password protected data base. A Electric System Stress can be minimized. Moreover the
complete setup is shown in Figure 4. Further, same can be system can be designed at low capacity being much
extended for any city. economical.
A. Load Control at the Customer Level:
Load control is a cheaper option which can provide
significant short term load reduction. A request is sent to each
consumer through the smart meter device to control appliances
based on their priority [14].

V. HOME ENERGY MANAGEMENT USING XBEE

HEM provides the user interface for the easy access of the
devices during over load in peak hours [15]. We have used
two XBee antenna for wireless communication. The HEM
Unit consists of three parts. One is the (Coordinator) PC for
displaying GUI while second is house distribution system
connected through switching relays Third is the (Router)
Arduino UNO R3 interfaced with the relay board to switch
Fig. 5 Street View GUI between the loads. Figure 10 shows the operation of HEM
Unit.
The energy consumption for a house is calculated and
shown in Figure 5.
 A. HEM Hardware Implementation
Start
The Arduino UNO R3 is used to control devices through
relays. XBee series 2 by Digi uses IEEE 802.14.5 Protocol
having indoor range of 40 meters and line of sight range up to
120 meters [16]. The X-CTU is used for ZigBee Configuration
in which Router-Coordinator Pair Topology is used. Router
Launch GUI XBEE is connected to PC containing the GUI for Home
Appliances Control, and the Coordinator is connected to the
Arduino for switching appliances via Relays in response to
commands from Router.

VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Connect the Router
No
The Router is The designed GUI as shown in Figure 8 shows ON status
Xbee with PC Available when all the appliances are within range. As the load exceeds
specified limit of 150W in our prototype, a warning is sent on
the GUI. Unnecessary appliances are switched OFF until the
Yes
load is within range again.

Insert Password of
GUI

No

Password is
Correct

Yes

GUI Appliances
Monitoring Panel Fig. 8 Load is within specified range

In our prototype, we have represented washing machine,

TV, refrigerator and microwave in place of 15W bulb, while
the Iron with 100W bulb loads. Each Appliance is operated
through a relay of rated 220VAC and 10A. A 10 minutes
Device Status
ON: Green Button
Total Load warning is sent to avoid complete supply Cut-OFF.
OFF: Red Button
Information Our meter response was checked for 12 hours continuously
and reading was tabulated. These results are in accordance with
No
the meter constant.
Yes

Table 3. Energy Meter Monitoring

Switch the
Load is Within Time Load (W) Bulbs Reading(KWH)
Unnecessary
Appliance
Range 12:00pm 60 1 000.000
12:30pm 60 1 000.030
01:00pm 60 1 000.060
02:00pm 120 2 000.120
Green Button Goes
03:00pm 120 2 000.240
Red and Appliance
Switches OFF A soon as the command ‘$STATUS’ is received from Grid
Station, Smart Meter sends the Energy consumption units
information to the cell phone. The meter response was
Fig. 7 HEM Flow Chart monitored using PC COM 4 and SIM number +3341234567 on
6-01-2014 from 12pm till 12am. Correspondence SMS
received was stored in the .csv file of the GUI data base. The
Grid Station data base results are shown in Table 4 for Engineering/Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and
000.001KWH/min. Information Technology (ECTI-CON),May 2013, pp.1-5.
[12] www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-
Table 4. Grid Station Data Base sheets/ADE7757.pdf.
Time Received (KWH) [13] www.datasheetarchive.com/AN-679-datasheet.html.
12:05:03 PM 000.005 [14] www.hbeonlabs.com/EFY%20Projects/Modified%20Low%20C
12:06:05 PM 000.006 ost%20Energy%20Meter.pdf.
12:11:07 PM 000.011 [15] K. T. Suratsavadee K. Korkua, "Design of ZigBee based WSN
12:30:07 PM 000.032 for smart demand responsive home energy management
system," in 13th International Symposium on Communications
VII. CONCLUSION and Information Technologies (ISCIT), 2013 , Surat Thani, 4-6
Sept. 2013, pp. 549-554.
We have proposed, design and Implemented a low cost
Smart Grid working prototype in Pakistani Scenario. The [16] R. Faludi, Buidling Wireless Sensor Networks, O'REILLY,
2010.
energy consumption of fabricated Smart Energy Meter is tested
and verified successfully in accordance with standard meter.
Grid Station is monitored on per minute basis through GSM. A
warning is generated in case of overload, which is tackled by
the HEM unit using IEEE 802.14.5 ZigBee protocol. The same
prototype is applicable for monitoring streets and city data base
at their respective Grid Stations.

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