Open Smart Meter
Created by First Electric
OEM-agnostic, PAYGO-enabled GSM electricity meter. Built with robustness and simplicity in mind.
About this Project
The Open Smart Meter solves a problem that affects most solar developers in the industry. This inexpensive and open source Smart Meter meets IEC and key elements of the local regulations in Nigeria.
In order to offer Energy as a Service, where the solar solution provider maintains ownership of the solar equipment and charges customers per for exactly what they consume, it was important for First Electric to have an inexpensive and OEM agnostic GSM prepaid smart energy meter that could be deployed one unit at a time.
Particularly in urban areas that already have a level of grid connectivity, being able to deploy solar solutions to an individual customer or a cluster of customers without having to worry about minimum viable order quantity brings much needed flexibility that will certainly help other Energy Providers, both in Nigeria and around the world.
How to Get Started
This document summarizes the manufacturing guide to enable a skilled person (with software engineering knowledge) to manufacture the smart energy meter.
How to Get Started with Open Smart Meter
Do you have feedback about the Open Smart Meter or need help in using it? The best way is to reach out to our community on Discord. If you need additional and more customized support, you can request technical assistance from our team.
GitHub: Smart Meter Design
Open Source hardware design, web software, firmware, and a how-to document.
Community discussion
The Open Smart Meter in particular benefited and improved because of the active involvement from the Open Source community.
Read (and join in on) the discussion on the EnAccess community, which is still being monitored as more users learn about the Smart Meter.
Project Report
First Electric plans to maintain ownership of solar equipment and charge customers per kWh, based on exact consumption. For this solution to work effectively, they needed an inexpensive and OEM agnostic GSM prepaid smart energy meter.
FAQ
The Open Smart Meter was recently published toward the end of 2022, and we are now collecting questions (and finding answers) as they arise. Read more to learn about manufacturing costs, and let us know what questions you have so we can include them here.