Innovation: Students of VMKV Engineering College of Vinayaka Mission University have developed a device to facilitate payment of electricity bills without need for conventional, manual readings.
SALEM: A team of final year students of EEE stream of VMKV Engineering College of Vinayaka Mission University, here, has developed an innovative device which will facilitate the payment of electricity bills, akin to the recharging mode of a prepaid mobile phone and eliminate conventional manual meter reading.
The innovation has attracted the attention of Kerala State Electricity Board, which has already completed the first round of technical talks with the students, during which they demonstrated their device before a team of officials headed by its Minister for Power. “The State shows keen interest,” said A. Nagappan, VMKV College Principal.
The students - E R Ajay Ghosh, Adinath D Nisy, P. Satheesh and S Jayashree – have developed the device, a ‘micro controller with a Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM)' unit that would interface with the energy meter of each house.
A separate SIM number would be given to each consumer who in turn should purchase a recharge coupon to get the system reactivated.
If the user recharges for Rs.100, he can use the power for that particular amount and the power connection thereafter will be disconnected automatically.
The system would also sound an alarm if the meter is running with a low balance.
Also a customer care support would be organised for the user to get details about his account information. For an uninterrupted usage the consumer must recharge before the auto shutdown.
Just as one recharges his or her mobile phone for prepaid connectivity, the consumer could pay a particular amount to the electricity office and use the power.
Nagappan and the faculty team S. Vijayakumar, Dean-BMI, M.Y.Sanaullah, Dean-Electrical Science and Ms. Sumathi, HOD-EEE, which is encouraging the students, while explaining the advantages of the innovative device pointed out that the government would be paid even before the consumption of power and power thefts and manpower could also be drastically minimized.
Details
“The user also can get the details about his account balance just by sending an SMS from his mobile phone anywhere in the world,” Nagappan said. The college also had another feather in its cap. Its student Om Prakash also of EEE department working on a research project entitled “Solar Power Satellite and Wireless Power Transmission” was recognized by M/s. Efficient Carbon, Hyderabad, a multinational company, and it has promised to provide technological and business support to pursue the project work.
“The present work aims to collect solar energy in space by a satellite in a geostationary orbit and converting to DC voltage by solar cells. The direct current is in turn used to power microwave generators in the gigahertz frequency (microwave) range. A highly-directive satellite-borne antenna beams the energy to the Earth and a rectifying antenna (rectenna) in the ground station will convert the microwave energy from the satellite to direct current, which, after suitable processing, is fed to the terrestrial power grid,” Nagappan said.
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