On-Site Electric Meter Billing Without Continuous Cloud Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional electric metering and billing systems require manual reading and processing of energy consumption data, leading to inefficiencies, high costs, and customer inconvenience due to reliance on cloud systems for data storage and billing, which can be costly and require continuous connectivity.
Innovation Solution
An intelligent electric meter with integrated metering, control, and communication components that automatically measure energy consumption, calculate charges, and generate bills on-site, eliminating the need for manual intervention and continuous cloud connectivity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If manual reading and data entry process is used, then human intervention is required for data collection and billing, but the process becomes cumbersome, inefficient, and error-prone
Solution Approach 1:
The electric meter automatically performs reading, data storage, and billing generation without human intervention. The metering device reads consumption data, stores it locally, calculates charges based on predefined rates, and generates bills autonomously, eliminating the need for manual data collection and entry while maintaining operational simplicity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines multiple functions (metering, data storage, charge calculation, and bill generation) into a single integrated device. This merging of functions automates the entire billing process while avoiding the complexity of multiple separate systems working together
2Ease of manufacture
If cloud system is used for data storage and processing, then recurring charges are incurred for feeding, storing, and processing energy consumption data, but the system becomes costly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the data storage and processing functions from the external cloud system and places them locally within the metering device. This eliminates recurring cloud access charges while maintaining full data processing capability, as the meter stores consumption data and billing information locally and generates bills independently
Solution Approach 2:
The metering device acts as an intermediary that locally processes energy consumption data and generates bills without requiring continuous cloud system access. It only communicates with the cloud system when needed for initial setup or optional data synchronization, eliminating ongoing cloud dependency while preserving data processing functionality
3Reliability
If continuous connectivity to cloud system is required, then the system can access remote server and process data, but connection loss or difficulty becomes a problem
Solution Approach 1:
The metering device performs all necessary billing operations (reading consumption data, storing it, calculating charges, and generating bills) locally without requiring continuous cloud connection. The system is pre-configured with billing parameters and rates, allowing it to operate independently and reliably even when cloud connectivity is unavailable or lost
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of requiring the meter to continuously connect to the cloud system for processing, the patent inverts the architecture so that the cloud system optionally connects to the meter for data retrieval. This inversion makes the system more reliable by eliminating the meter's dependency on continuous cloud connectivity while maintaining operational simplicity
Data Source
AI summary
An intelligent electric meter includes metering components for measuring energy consumption by one or more devices used by a customer in a building, a controller electrically coupled to the metering components and structured to control operations of the metering components and receive energy consumption data based on the measured energy consumption from metering components, a software device electrically coupled to the controller and structured to instruct the controller to monitor the energy consumption data, calculate energy consumption charges for the customer based at least in part on the energy consumption data, and generate a bill and energy usage data for a predefined period, and a communication device electrically coupled to the controller and the software device and structured to transmit the bill and energy usage data to the customer via a defined communications channel.