2017 9th International Conference on Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ICITEE), Phuket, Thailand
Development of an IoT Device for Monitoring
Electrical Energy Consumption
Siriwat Wasoontarajaroen*,
Khwanchai Pawasan and Vithaya Chamnanphrai
Faculty of Engineering
Rajamangala University of Technology Isan, Khonkaen Campus
siriwat.wa@rmuti.ac.th*
Abstract— An energy monitoring device integrating with the
concept of the Internet of Things allows their measured data to
be monitored and retrieved at any locations where internet is
available. This paper presents an IoT device that was developed
for monitoring electrical energy consumption in a building. It
was a low-cost IoT device consisting of three available off-the-
shelf modules including PZEM-004t electrical energy sensors, an
Arduino Nano Mini microcontroller and an ESP8266 Serial-to-
WiFi board. The IoT device was tested by conducting electrical
energy measurement for a week. The results of the test confirmed
that the device has functioned well which could be able to collect
electrical energy data for supporting efficient energy
management.
Keywords—electrical energy consumtion; IoT device; electrical
energy monitoring;
I. INTRODUCTION
The Internet of Things (IoT), also called as the Internet of
objects is a new technology facilitating the comfort of data and
information accessing among any objects or devices for human
to make life easier and smart in many aspects [1]. Recently,
there are a diversity of IoT applications such as smart energy,
smart city, and smart building [2][3][4]. To support these
applications, a device for gathering the data of energy usage
incorporating with the concept of the IoT needs to be carefully
developed. Being an IoT device, it can bring more convenience
for managing energy consumption because their collected data
are stored in a cloud server, so they can be monitored and
retrieved at any locations where internet is available. 
The objective of this paper is to present the development of
an IoT device for monitoring electrical energy consumption in
a building. It was designed to work on a three-phase four-line
power line and installed at a laboratory building of the
Rajamangala University of Technology Isan, Khonkaen
Campus (RMUTI-KKC). The development details are
discussed in the following sections. The contribution of this
work was to obtain the data of the electrical energy usage of
the building to support efficient energy management.
978-1-5090-6477-9/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
II. METHODS
A. Design Consideration
The device development began with searching for available
off-the-shelf modules that could ease the device design with
low cost. A PZEM-004t module was found to be suitable for
this design as using as an electrical energy sensor since its
functioning was matched on the scope of work. The cost of the
PZEM-004t module was also found to be cheapest in order to
compare with other electrical energy sensor modules. An
Arduino Nano Mini board was chosen as a central unit for
controlling the device because it was an open-source code
hardware together equipped with easy-to-program software
without needing an extra hardware (needing only an USB
cable). The ESP8266 module was selected to serve the role of
sending data to a could server on the internet since it was a low
cost serial-to-wifi module that found to be able to interface
smoothly with the Arduino Nano Mini microcontroller. To ease
a user for monitoring the measured data in real time by using a
mobile phone or tablet, an application for a mobile phone was
considered to be necessary, then it needed to be specifically
created to serve this propose.
B. Device Configuration
The device was designed using the PZEM-004t modules as
electrical sensors to measure the voltage, current, power and
energy of a three-phase four-line power line. A conceptual
block diagram of the device is shown in Fig. 1. This module
could handle the ac voltages between 80 and 260 Vrms and the
ac current up to 100 A. With the 220 Vrms, it could measure the
maximum power of 22kW. To cover all of the three phases,
three PZEM-004t modules were used. The modules gave
measured results in digital codes having the resolution of three
digits via a universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter
(UART) interface. The measured results were the values of
voltage, current, power and energy having the units of volts,
amperes, watts and kilowatt-hours, respectively. An Arduino
Nano Mini microcontroller was programmed to read the
measured results from the PZEM-004t modules, and then they
were saved in the microcontroller for every 15 seconds. In
every one minute, the measured results were passed to the
EPS8266 module for wirelessly sending to store in the
Thingspeak cloud server. After stored in the cloud server, the
 2017 9th International Conference on Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ICITEE), Phuket, Thailand

voltage, current, power and energy data could be displayed in

line graphs by using an internet browser. The stored data could
be downloaded to save in a text format for the analysis of the
energy usage. Moreover, to comfort the monitoring of the
measured data, a custom-made app on an Android platform
was made, so the measured data could be displayed on a
mobile phone in real time.

Fig. Ś L1-to-N voltage data.

Fig. 1 A conceptual block diagram of the IoT device.

III. RESULTS
The IoT device was installed to collect the energy
consumption data at the electronic and telecommunication Fig. 3 L2-to-N voltage data.
department’s building of the RMUTI-KKC during the period
between May 26 and June 2, 2017. Since this measurement was
conducted for a whole week, the collected data were many to
be given in this manuscript. So, only some parts of the data are
shown here as Fig. 2 to 13. A screenshot of real-time data
retrieved by the application of the mobile phone is shown as
Fig. 14.
This IoT device was, as mentioned earlier, built for
gathering energy consumption data to support efficient energy
management. With the existing of this device, operations (such
as shutting off lights and air conditioners during launch period,
restricting the air conditioner temperature setting to 25qC or
higher, and cleaning the air conditioner filters for comparing
air conditioner energy consumption between the before and the
after cleaning) will be efficiently introduced because the
improvement in reducing energy consumption can be
conveniently monitored.
For instance, as seem in Fig. 11 to 13, if the operation of
shutting off lights and air conditioners during launch period Fig. 4 L3-to-N voltage data.
had been implemented, the energy amount of 5kWh (1kWh
+2.3kWh +1.7kWh) would have been saved at that day. 
2017 9th International Conference on Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ICITEE), Phuket, Thailand

Fig. 8 L1-to-N power data.

Fig. 5 L1 current data.

Fig. 6 L2 current data. Fig. 9 L2-to-N power data.

Fig. 7 L3 current data. Fig. 10 L3-to-N power data.

 2017 9th International Conference on Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ICITEE), Phuket, Thailand

Lunch period

IV. CONCLUDSION
An IoT device was developed for measuring the voltage,
current, power and energy of a three-phase four-line power line
in a laboratory building. This was a low-cost IoT device
comprising of three electrical energy sensor modules, a
microcontroller and a serial-to-wifi module. The IoT device
was tested for collecting data to support efficient energy
management over a whole week and found to be well working
since smoothly yielding reliable data.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are indebted to the Rajamangala University of
Fig. 11 L1-to-N energy data per one-hour intervals. Technology Isan, Khonkaen Campus (RMUTI-KKC) in
Thailand for providing an excellent environment within which
to conduct this research. Heartfelt thanks are also given the
students of us in the telecommunication engineering program at
Lunch period the RMUTI-KKC for their assistance in fabricating the IoT
device and conducting measurements.

REFERENCES
[1] Z.K.A. Mohammed, and E.S.A. Ahmed, “Internet of Things
Applications, Challenges and Related Future Technologies,” World
Scientific News 67(2), pp. 126-148, 2017.
[2] R. Miceli. “Energy Management and Smart Grids,” Energies 6, pp.2262-
2290, 2013 (doi:10.3390/en6042262)
[3] G. Lobaccaro, S. Carlucci, and E. Löfström, “A Review of Systems and
Technologies for Smart Homes and Smart Grids” Energies 9, 2016
(doi:10.3390/en9050348)
[4] C.Y. Chen, Y.P. Tsoul, S.C. Liao, and C.T. Lin, “Implementing the
design of smart home and achieving energy conservation,” 7th IEEE
International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN 2009), pp.
Fig. 12 L2-to-N energy data per one-hour intervals. 273–276, Cardiff, Wales, 23–26 June 2009

Lunch period


Fig. 13 L3-to-N energy data per one-hour intervals.