The project aims at designing a net energy meter (NEM) which is a special billing arrangement that provides credit to customers with solar PV systems for the full retail value of the electricity their system generates. Under NEM, the customer's electric meter keeps track of how much electricity is consumed by the customer and how much excess electricity is generated by the system and sent back into the electric utility grid.   Power plays a great role wherever man lives and works. The living standard and prosperity of a nation vary directly with the increase in the use of power. The electricity requirement of the world is increasing at an alarming rate due to industrial growth, increased and extensive use of electrical gadgets. According to world energy report, we get around 80% of our energy from conventional fossil fuels like oil (36%), natural gas (21%) and coal (23%). It is well known that the time is not so far when all these sources will be completely exhausted. So, alternative sources should be used to avoid energy crisis in the nearby future. The best alternative source is solar energy. A solar panel is a large flat rectangle, typically somewhere between the size of a radiator and the size of a door, made up of many individual solar energy collectors called solar cells covered with a protective sheet of glass. The cells, each of which is about the size of an adult's palm, are usually octagonal and colored bluish black. Just like the cells in a battery, the cells in a solar panel are designed to generate electricity; but where a battery's cells make electricity from chemicals, a solar panel's cells generate power by capturing sunlight instead. They are sometimes called photovoltaic cells because they use sunlight ("photo" comes from the Greek word for light) to make electricity (the word "voltaic" is a reference to electricity pioneer Alessandro Volta). The customer gives this electricity to the utility. This amount of electricity will be billed by the Microcontroller with the help of Energy Meter Reading. The Microcontroller now displays the Net amount to be paid by the customer i.e., the net amount of electricity the customer exported to the utility subtracted from the net amount of electricity the customer has consumed during that billing period. The net amount is displayed on LCD.

     

The project provides learning’s on the following advancements:  

1. Solar panel characteristics.
2. Charge Controller.
3. Energy Meter

  The major building blocks of this project are:

1. Solar panel.
2. Charge Controller.
3. Energy Meter.
4. LCD display.
5. PIC Microcontroller.
6. Crystal Oscillator.
7. Reset button.
8. LED indicator.

 

Block Diagram:    

 

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