Design and Development of an IoT Smart Meter with Load Control for Home Energy Management Systems.

Electricity consumption is rising due to population growth, climate change, urbanization, and the increasing use of electronic devices. The trend of the Internet of Things has contributed to the creation of devices that promote the thrift and efficient use of electrical energy. Currently, most projects relating to this issue focus solely on monitoring energy consumption without providing relevant parameters or switching on/off electronic devices. Therefore, this paper presents in detail the design, construction, and validation of a smart meter with load control aimed at being part of a home energy management system. With its own electronic design, the proposal differs from others in many aspects. For example, it was developed using a simple IoT architecture with in-built WiFi technology to enable direct connection to the internet, while at the same time being big enough to be part of standardized electrical enclosures. Unlike other smart meters with load control, this one not only provides the amount of energy consumption, but rms current and voltage, active, reactive, and apparent power, reactive energy, and power factor-parameters that could be useful for future studies. In addition, this work presents evidence based on experimentation that the prototype in all its readings achieves an absolute percentage error of less than 1%. A real-life application of the device was also demonstrated in this document by measuring different appliances and switching them on/off manually and automatically using a web-deployed application.

A Solar Position Sensor Based on Image Vision.

Solar collector technologies operate with better performance when the Sun beam direction is normal to the capturing surface, and for that to happen despite the relative movement of the Sun, solar tracking systems are used, therefore, there are rules and standards that need minimum accuracy for these tracking systems to be used in solar collectors' evaluation. Obtaining accuracy is not an easy job, hence in this document the design, construction and characterization of a sensor based on a visual system that finds the relative azimuth error and height of the solar surface of interest, is presented. With these characteristics, the sensor can be used as a reference in control systems and their evaluation. The proposed sensor is based on a microcontroller with a real-time clock, inertial measurement sensors, geolocation and a vision sensor, that obtains the angle of incidence from the sunrays' direction as well as the tilt and sensor position. The sensor's characterization proved how a measurement of a focus error or a Sun position can be made, with an accuracy of 0.0426° and an uncertainty of 0.986%, which can be modified to reach an accuracy under 0.01°. The validation of this sensor was determined showing the focus error on one of the best commercial solar tracking systems, a Kipp & Zonen SOLYS 2. To conclude, the solar tracking sensor based on a vision system meets the Sun detection requirements and components that meet the accuracy conditions to be used in solar tracking systems and their evaluation or, as a tracking and orientation tool, on photovoltaic installations and solar collectors.