Smart meters for power grid: Challenges, issues, advantages and status

Abstract

Smart meter is an advanced energy meter that measures consumption of electrical energy providing additional information compared to a conventional energy meter. Integration of smart meters into electricity grid involves implementation of a variety of techniques and software, depending on the features that the situation demands. Design of a smart meter depends on the requirements of the utility company as well as the customer. This paper discusses various features and technologies that can be integrated with a smart meter. In fact, deployment of smart meters needs proper selection and implementation of a communication network satisfying the security standards of smart grid communication. This paper outlines various issues and challenges involved in design, deployment, utilization, and maintenance of the smart meter infrastructure. In addition, several applications and advantages of smart meter, in the view of future electricity market are discussed in detail. This paper explains the importance of introducing smart meters in developing countries. In addition, the status of smart metering in various countries is also illustrated.

Introduction

Smart meter is an advanced energy meter that measures the energy consumption of a consumer and provides added information to the utility company compared to a regular energy meter. Smart meters can read real-time energy consumption information including the values of voltage, phase angle and the frequency and securely communicates that data. The ability of smart meters for bidirectional communication of data enables the ability to collect information regarding the electricity fed back to the power grid from customer premises. A smart meter system includes a smart meter, communication infrastructure, and control devices. Smart meters can communicate and execute control commands remotely as well as locally. Smart meters can be used to monitor and also to control all home appliances and devices at the customer's premises. They can also collect diagnostic information about the distribution grid, home appliances, and can communicate with other meters in their reach. They can measure electricity consumption from the grid, support decentralized generation sources and energy storage devices, and bill the customer accordingly. Data collected by smart meters is a combination of parameters such as a unique meter identifier, timestamp of the data, and electricity consumption values. Smart meters can be programmed such that, only power consumed from the utility grid is billed while the power consumed from the distributed generation sources or storage devices owned by the customers is not billed. Smart meters can limit the maximum electricity consumption, and can terminate or re-connect electricity supply to any customer remotely [1], [2]. Fig. 1 shows an architectural model of a conventional energy meter and a smart meter.

A smart meter system employs several control devices, various sensors to identify parameters and devices to transfer the data and command signals. In future electricity distribution grids, smart meters would play an important role in monitoring the performance and the energy usage characteristics of the load on the grid. Collection of energy consumption data from all customers on a regular basis allows the utility companies to manage electricity demand more efficiently and also to advise the customers about the cost efficient ways to use their appliances. In light of this, smart meters can be used to control light, heat, air conditioning and other appliances [3]. Smart meters can be programmed to maintain a schedule for operation of the home appliances and control operation of other devices accordingly. In addition, integration of smart meters helps utility companies in detecting unauthorized consumption and electricity theft in view of improving the distribution efficiency and power quality [4].

Design of future electricity markets is aimed at providing their consumers with highly reliable, flexible, readily accessible and cost-effective energy services by exploiting advantages of both large centralized generators as well as small distributed power generation devices [5]. In addition, distributed generation would be an essential integral part of future household energy systems. Utility companies try to identify more profitable customers to provide optional value added services, as smart meters can identify such customers based on the distributed generation sources and overall power consumption. With all these services and other demand side management techniques require utility companies to collect large quantity of real-time data.

Rest of the paper is organized in the following way: Section 2 details various communication network technologies to date; Section 3 discusses various issues and challenges in developing, deploying and maintaining the smart meters; Section 4 outlines the applications and advantages of introducing the smart meters replacing the existing metering and billing system; Section 5 illustrates the need for implementation of smart meters in developing countries; and Section 6 summarizes the status of implementation of smart meters.