Onzo

Automated Meter Reading (AMR) is a forerunner of smart metering. The essential purpose of AMR was to replace the conventional billing process: using information and communications technology instead of manual meter reading. It ensures that accurate readings are sent regularly to an energy company so that customer billing can be accurate and timely. But it wasn’t long before people realized that there is much more that could be done with the infrastructure required to automate meter readings.

So smart metering can be broken down as follows:
1. A more intelligent meter – smart meter – than the ones in our homes currently. ‘Smart’ refers primarily to its ability to communicate, though ‘smart’ may also include increased accuracy and   other functionality. In fact it turns out that there is an extremely long list of things that ‘smart’ meters could do. We’ve included some of these things at the end. But it’s worth noting that there is no consistent definition of what constitutes ‘smart’.

2. An advanced metering infrastructure – AMI – which enables information to be exchanged between the meter and the energy supplier

3. Meter data management – MDM – software that stores and processes data

4. Sometimes an energy display is included in the scope of smart metering

In short, most smart meters communicate their information over a Local Area Network to aggregators, which bundle this up into a larger package of information. The aggregators then relay the bundled information to servers over a Wide Area Network. The information then gets stored and processed by the servers. Different options are available for the communications infrastructure. These include plc (power line carrier – the existing electricity wires to you and me), gsm/gprs (the mobile phone network), mesh radio (radio devices talking to one another wirelessly), pstn (the telephone network), and ip (the internet).

Issues with smart metering
1. Because its origins lie in AMR, the approach that is often taken is i) replacing a manual data collection process with IT and ii) seeing what else can be done with that IT and the information that is collected. The approach that should be taken is i) understanding customer needs and business needs and ii) developing cost effective solutions to those needs. The energy industry’s priorities are generally, and in order, generation; distribution and; billing. This is a long way removed from many industries that put the customer first. The energy display is a good example of this – it is generally little more than a meter out of the cupboard when it could be a key customer touchpoint.

2. Smart metering is an expensive thing to implement because it consists of a lot of new hardware that needs to be fitted by trained personnel, in a lot of homes, with expensive software that needs to integrate with legacy systems. Given the cost, you wouldn’t want to be going back any time soon to improve it. But there are dangers that the AMI component – the communications piece – and the smart meter itself get specified in a way that is limiting to future development. Smart metering has an Achilles heel that could turn out to be smart metering’s Y2k. There are three components:
a. Data granularity and quality. Because smart metering is a replacement billing process (see 1. above) readings are typically every ½ hour because this is the level of granularity that people think is needed for time of use tariffs. However, powerful information that helps the customer could be obtained through increased granularity – possible as fine as one second data.
b. Bandwidth. Because of a. bandwidth is assumed to be very small. But this fails to account for the possibility of finer granularity of data or future uses to which the communications infrastructure might be put. Home healthcare, for example, has very similar requirements.
c. Communications technology. The technologies that are currently being deployed will be very different from those that will be available in 10 years time, but the meters that are going out now have no way of being able to upgrade the communications hardware.

3. Because energy supply is a regulated monopoly in many (particularly North American) territories, solutions must be universal. There are also often constraints on these companies that prevent them from creating new revenue streams. The upshot of this is gold-plated solutions that can’t be leveraged for other purposes whose entire cost is passed on to the customer.

4. Governments and regulators find it hard to resist the call for something ‘smarter’, and ‘smart metering’ as a term is carelessly used as a solution to all ills. Governments and regulators need to be clear about their objectives (which might include reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, fairness for customers) and not rubber stamp solutions that have the flaws identified above just because they are presented as ‘smart’.

Other relevant terms
Demand-Side Management (DSM) is an aggregate term to describe everything that happens on the customer’s side of the meter. It includes Demand Response – when an energy company turns down or switches off the customer’s appliances to reduce demand so that the generation/distribution infrastructure can cope with a peak in demand. DSM also includes energy displays, websites, appliance monitoring and control.

Energy displays present information to the consumer on their energy use. At the core of most is a reading of real-time usage. This information can be obtained before smart metering is rolled out by means of a sensor, which is clipped onto the cable between the meter and the consumer unit. Post smart meter roll-out this information can come directly from the meter. Energy displays are also called RTD (real-time display/device), IHD (in-home display/device), energy monitor, energy meter, electricity display device, and also, inappropriately and confusingly, ‘smart meter’. Onzo likes ‘energy display’ because it’s simple and clear and has no overtone (unlike monitor which sounds a bit big brother) and isn’t going to turn into a meaningless acronym.

Smart grid is the term widely used to describe more effective distribution of electricity – as today’s alternating current power grid was created in 1896 it’s not surprising that there are some efficiencies which can be obtained by effective monitoring and management. Distribution is what happens to electricity between the power station and the meter. There are two ways in which the smart grid can extend beyond the meter. The first is when customers generate their own electricity and feed this into the grid. This is called microgeneration and includes combined heat and power plants, wind turbines, solar panels (solar pv), and (less likely) hydro-electric power from the stream in your garden. The second is when customers plug in their electric (and hybrid) vehicles; this means that there are lots of batteries attached to the distribution network that otherwise isn’t able to store electricity. Because smart grid goes beyond the meter, but one is still required, smart metering is sometimes assumed to be a subset of smart grid, although it’s perfectly possible to have a smarter grid without smarter meters and the other way round.

‘Smart’ meter functionality
Examples of the functionality specified in a ‘smart meter’ include:
• Local Area Network (LAN) communications interface – the fundamental piece of sma
rtness that allows the meter to communicate outside the home, enabling remote reading, other comms and controls. Normally this is either PLC, Mesh radio, GSM or IP. This is also sometimes known as the WAN (Wide Area Network)
• Home Area Network (HAN) communications interface – to allow a range of other devices (such as in-home displays and direct load control equipment) to access the communications network through the meter. This might also allow one utility meter to talk to another within a home, enabling meter readings from all of them (electricity, gas, and water) to be returned through a single communications infrastructure. Common solutions for the HAN are Zigbee, Z-Wave and Wireless M-Bus.
• Real-time reads – to enable display of useful information in the home, real-time or near real-time reads are required. This is additional to the much less frequent billing reading.
• Remote load control – to allow devices to be turned on or off by a pre-set pattern or the energy company on demand. This uses the HAN to communicate with the loads that are being controlled.
• Export metering – the ability to measure electricity flowing out of customers’ premises, supporting tariffs for distributed generation, including microgeneration.
• Remote connect/disconnect – the ability for the electricity supply to be cut off and restored on demand by the energy company.
• Outage detection – to identify when power is and isn’t reaching a home.
• Meter tamper detection – to monitor whether the meter is accessed without authorisation.
• Remote time synchronisation – to keep the meter’s internal clock synched.
• Quality of supply measurement and recording – to detect and record changes in voltage and other power quality issues.
• Appliance inference – to identify which appliances are using energy in the home using algorithms that recognize electronic signatures and patterns of use.
• Display – a screen on the meter itself which shows energy usage information.
• Data entry – a keyboard in essence (could be touchscreen) giving the consumer the ability to input information.
• Switchable between credit and prepay – ability of the energy company to change meter functionality
• Payment – ability to make payments via the meter itself
• Encryption – to ensure that information sent over the communications network can be ‘read’ by authorized personnel only
• Self-configuration – so that a meter can set itself up when it is installed
• Upgradable – the firmware in the meter can be remotely upgraded over the AMI network
• PHEVs – the ability to connect plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) as well as fully electric vehicles