How AMI Enables the Smart Grid
How AMI Enables the Smart Grid
Itron
The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Smart Grid Task Force brought together some of the leading thought and research groups in the Smart Grid arena in early 2008. Together, they agreed upon seven characteristics of a “Smart Grid,” defining a future power delivery grid that meets the needs of the next generation of Americans.
- Enable active participation by consumers
- Accommodate all generation and storage options
- Enable new products, services and markets
- Provide power quality for the range of needs in a digital economy
- Optimize asset utilization and operating efficiency
- Anticipate and respond to system disturbances in a self-healing manner
- Operate resiliently against physical and cyber attacks, and natural disasters
Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), also commonly referred to as smart meters or simply advanced metering, is one of the key technologies required to enable several of the Smart Grid characteristics, and it plays some role in all of them. For this reason, AMI must be viewed as a foundational enabling technology for the Smart Grid.
The following describes the way in which AMI contributes to the realization of each of the seven characteristics of the Smart Grid:
Enable active participation by consumers
This is a core capability of an AMI system, and is referred to as interval data, or load profiling. The other key enabler provided by a proper AMI system is the AMI home area network (HAN), which allows real-time usage information to be transmitted wirelessly from the meter to devices in the home.
Once the utility has implemented AMI and begun collecting interval data for all of their customers, they can then charge time-differentiated rates for usage of electricity, instead of charging a flat rate. AMI enables time-based rates by allowing the utility to both measure, and collect in a timely manner, data which correlates an individual consumer’s usage with the time of that usage. This data can be used for price-based demand response—changes in electric usage by end-use customers in response to changes in the price of electricity over time. For instance, turning off the lights when electricity is scarce. AMI can also influences changes in the price of electricity over time through:
- Time-of-use pricing
- Real time pricing
- Critical peak pricing
- Peak time rebates
Accommodate all generation and storage options
A properly designed AMI system enables full bi-directional energy measurement at the billing meter, known as net metering, as well as allowing for retrieval of measurement data from the device itself or an associated sub-meter, via the HAN.
This also encompasses distributed storage devices, which at the residential level will appear first in the form of electric vehicles. Here again, the AMI system can play the role of enabler by collecting data on the energy being used specifically for charging an electric vehicle, and also for transmitting pricing signals to the vehicle to help coordinate when charging takes place.
Enable new products, services and markets
The ability for end-users of electricity, and potentially even end-use devices themselves, such as smart thermostats, to participate in energy markets is essential in removing the functional inefficiencies of wholesale power markets. The key to enabling this participation is AMI as it can link the demand for electricity to the price of electricity in real-time.
As new products and services related to end-use energy management continue to evolve, it can be anticipated that markets will evolve alongside them to take advantage of the value created by improving the efficiency of energy usage.
Provide power quality for the range of needs in a digital economy
Specific to the residential customer, voltage is a key determinant of power quality. However, only a very small percentage of a utility’s customer base understands the effects of voltage on their equipment or devices, and therefore most customers are unaware of the reason for device malfunction or failure when it is caused by variations in voltage.
Because of the enhanced capabilities of the electric meters that make up AMI, the technology will, for the first time, enable utilities to monitor voltage at the point of electricity delivery to every customer on their system, allowing them to adequately power high-tech residential devices, like HDTV.
Optimize asset utilization and operating efficiency
Collecting and analyzing the proper data set from various points on the electric grid during all types of operating conditions can give the system operator and/or system designers a much deeper look into how the system’s assets are being utilized
Not only does AMI, by virtue of its smart meters, provide a high accuracy sensor at every delivery point on the distribution network, but the communication system used for AMI data retrieval also allows data collection from other non-meter data sensors, for instance, transformer meters.
Anticipate and respond to system disturbances in a self-healing manner
Many AMI solutions include mesh networking, allowing for continuous connections and reconfigurations around broken or blocked paths at the HAN and local area network (LAN) levels. AMI nodes on a mesh network are able to dynamically change their connections to neighboring nodes or to cell relays as conditions change, such as foliage obstruction or other impediments that may degrade a particular connection at any given time.
Additionally, tamper indications can be communicated regularly through an AMI system including meter inversion, meter removal and reverse energy flow.
Operate resiliently against physical and cyber attacks, and natural disasters
Resiliency against cyber attacks is a core competency of AMI. With the deployment of highly secure AMI networks, utilities will have the ability to extend automation out to all levels of their system without compromising system reliability. AMI is one of the primary drivers of security practices for the distribution network level of the Grid.
AMI changes the utility landscape by creating a secure network between advanced meters and utility business systems. For the first time, this allows the collection and distribution of information to customers and other parties such as competitive retail suppliers, in addition to the utility itself. In this way, the AMI and the Smart Grid will deliver a new level of excellence in utility operations and customer service, securing a smart and efficient energy future for all.
Best regards,Sean Carnahan
