Design and Construction of a Computer Based Power Billing System

Abstract

Meter reading is an important part of billing system for residential and commercial buildings. This often does not reflect the exact or true electricity consumption of such buildings, resulting in an inefficient bill mainly due to human errors. Thus, it is essential to have n efficient and effective system for this measurement purposes. This project is about the design and construction of a personal computer (PC) based electronic billing system. It is made up of integrated circuits, active and passive hardware devices. And a Visual Basic software program used for programming the PC parallel port. The device is used to measure accurately the electric power consumed by a residential or commercial buildings which is more economical compared to the electro-mechanical devices. Utility companies can directly monitor and control electrical power supply billing of its spatially distributed consumers without engaging the services of meter readers. The meter displays the sale rate of power and the consumed power per minute, respectively.