Application of Intelligent Agents in Wireless Prepaid Energy Meter

Abstract

Prepaid meter (PM) is getting very popular especially in developing countries. There are many advantages to use prepaid meter as opposed to postpaid meter both to the utility provider and to the consumer. Brunei has adopted PM but it is not intelligent and not wireless enabled. Reading meters and topping up balance are still done manually. Utility provider does not have information on the usage statistics and has only limited functionalities in the grid control. So accordingly an intelligent agent based wireless prepaid energy meter been developed using JADE-LEAP Agent development kit allowing agent from utility provider to query wireless energy meter for energy values for every household. These statistics can be used for statistical computation of the power consumed and for policy and future planning. Agent from consumers' mobile devices can query the energy meter to study the power consumed and for topping up the balance. When the meter reaches the threshold, agent at energy meter would also send messages to alert consumers for topping up through mobile handset and failing to do so will lead to power being cut automatically