Abstract
Domestic electronic water meters are installed by water meter utility companies to accurately measure household water usage for billing purposes, progressing from simple electromechanical systems to state-of-the art volumetric electronic smart meters with RF radio transmission, remote reading, and automatic billing capability. The motivation for this work is to replace, or increase the lifetime of, the on-board lithium-ion battery installed in electronic water meters with a thermoelectric energy harvesting solution to create a business advantage. Practical field experiments at several different water meter installations in the UK, USA, and Australia have demonstrated a temperature difference can exist between the top-side and bottom-side of a water meter, and between several different areas of the meter and the surrounding air. This temperature difference can be harnessed to generate electrical power using thermoelectricity. A prototype thermoelectric water meter energy harvesting system has been designed, and experiments demonstrate the system will operate when a temperature difference is present across the thermoelectric module, giving an output voltage of 3.7 V to power the water meter electronics directly or to provide a charge current for the existing lithium-ion battery to increase its lifetime. The work concludes it is feasible, although still challenging, to develop a solution for a novel thermoelectric powered water meter. Further work is required to address the commercial challenges that exist, develop and optimise the prototype solution into a production ready prototype, and conduct further tests using a standard UK domestic water profile at a UK water meter test site.
Highlights
Residential or domestic water meters are installed by water meter utility companies to accurately measure household water usage for billing purposes, and it has become increasingly common for water meters to be compulsory for residential users
The motivation for this work is to replace, or increase the lifetime of, the on-board lithium-ion battery installed in electronic water meters with a thermoelectric energy harvesting solution to create a business advantage
The electrical power generated by the system can be used to provide a charge current to the existing water meter 3.6 V lithium-ion battery to increase its lifetime in meters equipped with RF radio transmission, or potentially, to remove the existing 3.6 V battery entirely in electronic water meters without radio transmission
Summary
Residential or domestic water meters are installed by water meter utility companies to accurately measure household water usage for billing purposes, and it has become increasingly common for water meters to be compulsory for residential users. The UK has moved over time to direct water metering and billing for domestic water use, and all new-build houses will typically have a water meter fitted and households are billed for measured water usage rather than a standing charge. The majority of UK households will eventually use a domestic water meter for measurement and billing purposes [1]. We provide the main theoretical background into thermoelectric power generation and energy harvesting systems necessary to apply this technique to electronic water meter applications. The heat sink is used to create and maintain a temperature difference between the hot and cold sides of the module. If a resistive load RL is connected across the module’s output terminals, electrical power will be generated at the load when a temperature difference exists between the hot and cold sides of the module due to the Seebeck effect [10]. A schematic diagram of a thermoelectric module, operating as a thermoelectric power generator, is shown in figure 1
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