3 Phase Modbus Smart Power meter with relay actions and power line communication telemetry

# PMTR_001_SRV_001 V0.22

Description

PMTR (Power Meter, Telemetry & Relay) is an open source project that allows precise monitoring of mains parameters (voltage, current, active power, energy, power factor and frequency) and allows to act on external relays based on formula triggers (ex: overcurrent or overvoltage)It is a client/server project with a Web interface for data display, logging and device configuration.It uses power line communication and the industrial proved Modbus protocol to transfer data between the client and servers; no need to have ethernet or wifi at your main power panel.
It is modular and robust in approach, using off the shelf components available on Aliexpress or other vendor sites to ease replacement of parts if need arise, and thus lower TCO for many years.
The server(s), (PMTR_001_SRV) is an Arduino based device that performs the power measurements and relay actions. Its configuration is pushed by a client.
The client(s) (PMTR_001_CLI) is a Raspberry Pi device that grabs power telemetry and pushes configuration and time synchronisation to the server(s) device. As stated above, it does not rely on an Ethernet connection, just a Power line communication based on the ES-1642 NC module (also available on Aliexpress)
Relay actions are used mainly to protect your equipment (for industrial settings) and control energy costs (ex: hotel industry, power charging for EV), It will also allow to cut/enable power at specific time of the day.
This project, using the modbus protocol, will allow several servers. thus you can monitor individual circuit branchings on power subpanels.
Two flavour of servers are being developped : A single phase meter, and a 3 phase meter. they are rugged using fuses and varistors for overvoltage protection.Metering is based on modified PZEM-004t v3.0 modules that can measure line to line voltages up to 437V AC.
For more information on the client, check: https://www.github.com/rodv92/PMTR_001_CLI

For more code information on the modbus server, check: https://github.com/rodv92/PMTR_001_SRV

Current State of the project.

A single phase proof of concept with a raspberry pi client and a single phase power meter was done and shows good results. The server code integrate formula based actions, and time synchronization. A basic web chart of power parameters and logging into a MariaDB database is part of this POC.

What needs to be done in priority as of November 2022:

• Finish the 3 phase prototype server, currently designed with Easy-EDA pro.
• Add ADG333 switching of serial line to query each PZEM-004t V3 modules. (done sequential querying with two modules, ok)
• Add code for DS3231 time keeping.
• Harden and test formula actions where conflicting pins are used with different actions.
• Make the raspberry pi (wifi, serial) configuration seamless
• Expand the raspberry pi client to query several servers with auto-detection on the PLC bus
• Add a MQTT layer on the raspberry pi for upstream telemetry reporting
• keep in touch with PeaceFair, the maker of the PZEM-004t V3.0 to make a hardened 400V module (there are still some issues regarding with high voltage tolerance)
  

INSTALLATION and SETUP

PMTR_001_SRV IS NOT INTEDED FOR DISTRIBUTION / POWER UTILITY NETWORKS !

typical use case for 3 phase delta-wired measurement:

Note that since the motor is a 3 phase delta wired device, PMTR_001_SRV has to be setup in the following way :- Hardware method : By placing measurement jumpers inside the device for line voltage measurement (L1,L2),(L2,L3)(L3,L1)OR- Software method : By specifying a multiplicative correction factor : sqrt(3) for power and energy measurements inside the PMTR web interface. this factor will be uploaded to the PMTR_001_SRV device
The setup contains a single digital pin operating a 5V relay (NO) that provides in turn power to a contactor (NO) that power ups (or down) the induction motor.
It is then trivial to use logic to specify a relay action that evaluates and power ups or down the motor upon specific power conditions. More on relay actions below.
Also note that the PMTR_001_SRV and PMTR_001_CLI are connected on the same line (L1) for PLC communication to occur.

Other installation best practices

PMTR_001_SRV Contains a ES-1642 NC PLC modem (Power Line Communication). No Line filter should be present between the server and the client, the client would be unable to communicate with the server !L1, L2, L3 current coils should be placed on the current carrying wires of the metered installation, not on the wires supplying energy to the meter PMTR_001_SRV can operate over IT, TT, TN-C TN-CS earthing schemes.Being a non metallic chassis, PMTR_001_SRV does not require to be grounded.PMTR_001_SRV contains ceramic fuse protection and varistor overvoltage protection.PMTR_001_SRV will be packaged inside a standar DIN Rail plastic enclosure for ease of installation inside a power distribution main panel.
Check the HW folder of this project for the terminal pin references.

Installation Steps

• 0) Disconnect power to the facility or to the VFD for safe installation of the current coils.
• 1) Setup Modbus Address using the 8 position DIP switch to any value between 1 and 254. 0 is a broadcast address. 255 is a bridge address. Do not use these on the PMTR_001_SRV2) Set the 3 jumpers to LN metering – default – (line to neutral) or LL metering (line to line) Usually LN is preferred if the metering is on a standard european consumer network. LL metering is usually reserved for Variable Frequency Drive metering. In that case, skip step 4.
• 2) After each phase is disconnected from the terminals, insert the current coil over the wire and reattach to the input and output terminals. repeat for each phase.
• 3) Connect CT- and CT+ wires to the appropriate PMTR-001-SRV terminals. Repeat for each phase Then,
• 4) Connect neutral wire first to the PMTR_001_SRV
• 5) You can re-establish power inside the facility now or power the VFD
• 6) then connect L1 L2 L3. Beware, lines are powered on, use an electrician screwdriver !!!!When connecting L1, the unit should power up, unless on a VFD where you need at least two phases. You can test that all DC power supplies are providing backup power by connecting them individually. PMTR_001_SRV should work with either L1, L2 or L3 connected in LN metering.
• 7) if a backup / battery supply is available you can connect it to AUX12VDC to the positive terminal and GND to the negative terminal
• 8) Tie the SEND terminal to any L1 L2 or L3 phase, now the Rasperry Pi (PMTR_001_CLI) can be connected to the same phase and neutral as the PMTR_001_SRV and it should set the time up
• repeat the same actions 1 to 8 on any other PMTR_001_SRV to install on the network. use the same phase line for all the PMTR_001_SRV that you install
• PMTR_001_SRV can supply up to 0.8A at 12V over the 12VDC_OUT terminal, electromechanical relays can be powered by 12V IF the 5V relay action pin is recognized as HIGH by the relay.anyway, PMTR_001_SRV can supply up to 1.7A at 5V over the 5VDC_OUT terminal, for electromechanical relays. nb: The relay action pins cannot supply more than 40mA current, use is limited only to SSR relays !!
• Proceed to PMTR_001_CLI Readme to finish setup.

Modified PZEM-004t v3.0 information

–
The original PZEM-004t v3.0 can measure up to 267V RMS.
Here, The metering is done through a modified PZEM-004t v3 for up to European phase to phase voltage tolerance :up to 427V RMS with 0.2V resolution. Compared to the non-modified version, This ALSO allows phase to phase metering, and phase to neutral in case of neutral fault.Power, Energy, power factor resolution are doubled due to the fact that their computing involve instantaneous voltage measurement which is affected by the PZEM modification.
Otherwise, the floors, ceilings of the remaining parameters conforms to the PZEM-004T v3.0 datasheet of this day.It is expected that frequency measurement is not affected by the PZEM-004t v3.0 HV modification.For power factor, leading or lagging info is not provided.
PMTR_001_SRV performs instantaneous measurement as fast as the 9600 bps serial interface allows, which is a little less than 100 per second (all parameters read)When performing 3 phase metering the PMTR_001_SRV performs serial port switching (using an ADG333A Quad SPDT switch) So it shares a single serial port on the Arduino for 3 PZEM-004T modules.this lowers the read rate to less than 33 per second.
an average value over 1 second of these 33 samples is stored as the “1 second average”On the basis of this 1 second average, then a moving average from 2 to maximum of 60 seconds is saved.
The device has 5 memory slots for Moving Average information of all parameters (except energy)For instance, We could store the Moving Average over 5, 10, 20, 30, 60 seconds.
The incentive behind moving average calculation is to apply low pass filtering and filter any spurious spike that would make an inappropriate relay action at the time.

Relay Actions

A ‘relay action’ is a set of the following parameters :

• An expression : using tokens representing PMTR_001_SRV parameters, and a set of inequalities and logic.- A moving average to use for expression evaluation (except energy which is never averaged)
• A dry run bit (Yes/No), which tells whether to perform or not the relay action, while still logging all action behaviour
• A recovery period during which the expression must keep evaluating to false before reverting relay action. This hysteresis is implemented for protecting devices which should not be turned on/off too frequently.
• A HIGH or LOW state to command the relay when expression evaluates to true. (on false evaluation the state commanded will the be opposite ) nb : This evaluation from memory is the first action to be executed at boot up.
• A list of pins on which DIGITALWRITE Will be performed.It is recommended that each action activates a separate set of pins, otherwise the last evaluated actions will have precedence and overwrite the status of pins.

There are 5 actions slots.

Examples of valid expressions :

• (L1U > 253) || (L2U > 253)) || (L3U > 253)
• LII > 16
• LIp > 1200
• L2e > 10
• (L1f < 49.1) && (L2f < 49.1) && (L3f < 49.1)
  

Ex : L1U is phase to neutral L1 RMS voltage, L1I is phase to neutral RMS current, L2f is L2 frequency.Units use are SI, excepts for energy which is in kWh
First case would be the detection of a voltage swell over 253V over L1,L2 and L3 at the same time.The second a current of more than 16A on L1Next an active power of more than 1200W on L1Next, A total energy consumed of more than 10kW over L2. Finally a frequency sag of 49.1 Hz over any of the phases.

Neutral fault detection

Broken neutral (floating) fault in three phase systems can have disastrous consequences by essentially rewiring the loads in a delta fashion.

Depending on the location of the fault and earthing arrangements, voltage imbalances arise, and the neutral point is shifted and may be subjected to voltages relative to earth that may be unsafe.

A sucessful neutral fault detection without false positives is not trivial based on a limited number of voltage readings (three power meters only), absence of phase angle information, and absence of a neutral to separate ground electrode voltage measurement

However, using magnitudes of voltages only and their variation in the time domain according to load variation, we can tentatively propose an lightweight algorithm suitable for MCUs to detect such occurences.

Keeping in mind that if the load are reasonably balanced the fault will be harder to detect, until a disturbance in the balance of loads will unbalance voltages.

Generally speaking, a broken neutral condition will translate in an increase of one phase voltage, while the other two will decrease with reference to the nominal value, or one will decrease while the other two will increase.

A lightweight pre-check for discriminating between single phase power disturbances and neutral fault would be to check for any voltage exceeding a 10% nominal value deviation, and then proceed to check remaining voltages for disturbances.

A valuable tool for analysis of neutral fault conditions is the three phase voltage triangle. By using basic trigonometric identities of the equilateral triangle, we can characterize the least possible deviation in absolute values of the other two voltages assuming epsilon is the deviation factor from nominal value for the upmost voltage.

$$ \epsilon = 1.1 $$

$$ V_{p} = 230V $$ is the nominal phase RMS voltage

$${V_p}^{‘} = \frac{V_p \sqrt{4+12\epsilon^2}}{4\epsilon} $$ is the least possible deviation from nominal values for the two remaining voltages.

Thus we can write : $$ V_pdev >= |V_p – {V_p}^{‘}| $$

So, in terms of ratio we have $$ \frac{V_p^{‘}}{V_p} $$

The algorithm has to check that the remaining two voltages is higher or equal to that ratio for the first voltage and lower or equal to that ratio for the second voltage. Once this pre-characterization is done, a second part, more computationally intensive part of the algorithm can kick-in, to check that the sum angle derived from magnitude of the phase voltages is still close to 360° degrees, while analyzing voltages changes in the time domain.

Phase angles can be derived from magnitudes using sine and cosine trigonometric identities of the triangle. voltages fluctuations on the three phases with time that keep their sum angle close to 360° can be assigned a score for each angle sum characterization. With a value close to 360° giving a positive score, and a value diverging from 360° giving a negative score.

A sum of absolute values differences between discrete time samples of the three voltages can assign a weight to the characterization. This characterization puts into evidence the variation of load impedance in a broken neutral condition, and gives more credence to the computation if the angle sum keeps getting close to 360°

Once a positive score compounded by the previous weight reach a threshold, a broken neutral condition can be raised.

There are caveats however. a robust algorithm must assess the stability of the line voltages over time, preferably over a long term period. Using only three power line meters, a common occurence of unstable line voltages will degrade significantly the predictive abilities of the algorithm.

Hardware in-depth information

AC protection features

– 20mm x 5mm 0.1 A ceramic fuses, fast blow 250V, this for each phase L1 L2 L3 and neutral N- 14D481K varistors between each phase and neutral, and for protection of the PLC module.

AC/DC conversion

Power is provided by YHT4S12V/10W modules AC380V tolerant.the three modules are connnected line to neutral and should be tolerant to neutral fault and up to 2 phase faults.

DC Bus

Matched Schottky diodes are used to improve power sharing betweeen the modules at 11.5Va single LM2596 dc step down module provides 5V to the DC bus

PLC

ES-1642NC uses a separate hardware serial port for modbus communication over one phase and neutral. the serial line speed is 9600 bps. the PLC speed is between 2.5 to 4.5 kbps. Check Taidacent product page for more information.

MCU

The main controller is an Arduino mega 2560 it is on a separate mezzanine board than the HV parts / PZEM Modules.
The following IC : ADG333 allows routing a single hardware serial port to the three PZEM modules. Querying is continuous and sequential (all parameters of module 1,2,3,1,2…)
It could be technically feasible to have all PZEM modules on the same RX/TX serial TTL pair, but that would need to ensure that the optocouplers do not overload the RX/TX current sourcing capabilities, and also would need a factory preset of the PZEM-004t V3.0 addresses. Note that PZEM-004t V3.0 itself is a modbus device.
The server itself encapsulate telemetry queries and present the 3 PZEM-004t V3.0 as a single modbus server device to the Raspberry Pi client.
Thus, it seems more adequate to use the same Modbus address on each module, and switch them using an IC switch like the ADG333.

Time keeping & Synchronisation

A real time clock (RTC) 3231 mini module is used to keep track of time and the synchronization is done over PLC / Modbus.
Modbus address encoding of the server is done throught a 8 bit DIP switch encoder.

Software (check github repository)

Most of the single phase functionality is POC tested.three phase hardware testing and harderning is still in progress.Software is still in POC phase. Consider the code to be in alpha stage.

https://github.com/rodv92/PMTR_001_SRV

https://github.com/rodv92/PMTR_001_CLI

Hardware Schematics

Software library includes & Credits

Modbus library used for PLC client/servers communication ArduinoModbus depends on the ArduinoRS485 library https://github.com/arduino-libraries/ArduinoRS485https://github.com/arduino-libraries/ArduinoModbusby sandeepmistry

specific modbus conditioning and parsing library for the power monitoring moduleshttps://github.com/mandulaj/PZEM-004T-v30by mandulaj
library for timekeeping https://github.com/PaulStoffregen/Time/blob/master/TimeLib.hby PaulStroffregen

library for scheduling task by timer ISRshttps://github.com/khoih-prog/TimerInterruptby khoih-prog
library for parsing math and logical expressions (for relay logic)https://github.com/zserge/expr/blob/master/expr.hby zserge