Due to energy shortages, rising prices, and conserve energy problem, it becomes a major government policy to reduce carbon emission. The most important objectives aim to (1) control and use electricity effectively, (2) construct the smart grids, and (3) stabilize electric power systems. This research provides an application of wireless sensor network and Modbus protocol in multi-function power meters to improve the efficiency of energy usage in advanced metering infrastructure system. The

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... ication interface of the traditional meter reading system usually uses the RS-232/RS-485 interface. To enhance the meter system with flexible and stable communication function, the dsPIC33F microcontroller and TI CC2530 ZigBee wireless communication modules are used and combined in multi-function power meters. The wireless sensor network is designed and developed in the two control modes: (1) broadcast mode, and (2) unicast mode, and can acquire the measurement data for variety of digital meters. This monitoring system can offer real time online information about the power consumption of a factory, and provide a considerable competitive advantage in the short-distance communications. Based on the monitoring system, the power consumption can be supervised, measured and analyzed, and the warning message will be shown on the user interface. Experiment results show that our proposed WSN-based monitoring system can be applied to autonomously collecting periodic power measurements and responding to request commands for all indoor or outdoor environments.