Design and Implementation of an Online Electricity Payment and Metering System with Payment Integration, Emailing and SMS

Nigeria's energy sector is plagued by poor, inadequate and disorganized electricity billing and consumer relations management. Despite the introduction of prepaid billing meters, electricity billing and collection remains a major challenge in some communities in Nigeria. Because the electricity consumer must first go to the bank to make the payment and then take the cashier to the electricity company's office to confirm the electricity payment before the electricity is applied to the card. The installment and payment process is tedious and burdensome. The main objective of this research is to design and implement a practical, cashless, automated and transparent electricity metering, billing and payment system.  This study combines the power of the Internet to allow a power meter to communicate with her SMS and email network. Once fully implemented, the proposed system will allow electricity consumers to seamlessly charge and pay their electricity bills remotely via their mobile phones or laptops. The introduction of an online electricity payment and meter reading system will help improve accountability, organize and simplify electricity payments in Nigeria. The proposed system was developed using HTML and CSS, as well as Python and MySQL programming languages.