A brave new world of smart metering pilot schemes will introduce intelligent management of energy consumption - and create opportunities for the IT professional.
By Helen Beckett [Published 26/10/2010]
Plans for a £54m smart metering trial in the north east were unveiled last week and complement a pilot already underway in Reading, which both trial communications between smart metres in homes and the grid.
Security, communications and IT winners
A government prospectus published in July became the starting gun for a raft of regional pilots that could lead to the eventual wholesale adoption of smart metering. This transition to smart metering will create multiple new opportunities, according to Rich Hampshire, principal consultant for management consultancy, Logica: "It means big opportunities for people who understand the communications technology, and big opportunities for people in IT and the security sector".
The sea change in the way that electricity, gas and water is provisioned and managed was introduced in order to move the country towards a low-carbon economy. Underpinning the sea change is the implementation of a sophisticated communications and information infrastructure intended to transform energy distribution, consumption and billing.
Smart meters installed in every home in the land will enable suppliers to read tariffs regularly and to offer consumers more sophisticated tariffs that match their needs. The Government also plans to use accurate measurement and communication of usage to offer fiscal incentives to consumers to invest in micro-generators, such a solar panel heating, which they can use to put surplus energy back into the grid.
Back office upgrades in pipeline
Smart meters require a much smarter grid. Currently, energy loads can be managed at plant level but that means there's less control over the local distribution network. National events with tea-making intervals, such as half-time of the FA Cup, can still make the grid fall over. So bringing their back office system up to speed to take advantage of new consumer usage patterns will become a priority for the utility and metering agents.
Data management is the key here, explains Logica’s Hampshire, who advises that the advent of meter data management systems (MDMS) will integrate with current systems in order to manage the much bigger volumes of data. These will need able data and capacity managers to run and configure and project managers and system integration experts to install.
Long range radio frequency feedback
A strong contender for a networking solution is long-range radio frequency, which will be in competition with cellular networks. The pilot in Reading has shown good results, confirmed Andy Slater of Sensus, part of the BT-led Smartreach consortium.
"It has proved a capability in hard-to-reach places as well as having a wide reach of 11 miles. This is largely down to its narrow frequency of 400 MHz which can penetrate buildings. It also suffers from less noise disruption that broadband", he claims.
David Green, programme director for smart metering at another Smartreach member, Arqiva, confirmed the performance. "As part of our testing of the in-building signal penetration, we took an end point to the bottom of a lift shaft in Fountain House, Reading. The end point was far below ground level ... and even here we found that the end point could communicate with two radio masts. We also installed an end-point at a domestic property in the area and found that it could communicate with three different radio masts - with the furthest being 11.5 miles away."
Network modelling a must
Whichever network is eventually chosen for transmitting meter data to the grid, implementation will entail not only the physical installation of masts but a lot of logistical planning and modelling. Propagation planning will require suppliers such as Sensus to use experienced capacity planners to configure the infrastructure correctly.
Looking even further ahead, smart metering and the smart grid will spawn software applications - and a sub–industry to build them - that Microsoft and Google are already vying for, says Sensus’ Slater. "Applications will encourage consumers to change their behaviour, such as knowing the best time to swap out a freezer that is no longer efficient."
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