The Role of Smart Meters in Enabling Real-Time Energy Services for Households: The Italian Case

Abstract

Abstract:The Smart Meter (SM) is an essential tool for successful balancing the demand-offer energy curve. It allows the linking of the consumption and production measurements with the time information and the customer's identity, enabling the substitution of flat-price billing with smarter solutions, such as Time-of-Use or Real-Time Pricing. In addition to sending data to the energy operators for billing and monitoring purposes, Smart Meters must be able to send the same data to customer devices in near-real-time conditions, enabling new services such as instant energy awareness and home automation. In this article, we review the ongoing situation in Europe regarding real-time services for the final customers. Then, we review the architectural and technological options that have been considered for the roll-out phase of the Italian second generation of Smart Meters. Finally, we identify a collection of use cases, along with their functional and performance requirements, and discuss what architectures and communications technologies can meet these requirements.

Smart Home Energy Management

“…It allows the linking of the consumption and production measurements with the time information and the customer's identity, enabling the substitution of flat-price billing with smarter solutions, such as Time-of-Use or Real-Time Pricing. In this research field, Pitì et al [16] review the ongoing situation in Europe regarding real-time services for the final customers. Moreover, they analyze the architectural and technological options that have been considered for the roll-out phase of the Italian second generation of smart meters.…”

BER evaluation of post-meter PLC services in CENELEC-C band

“…The so called CENELEC-C band refers to frequency in range between 125-140 kHz reserved for home network systems and developed by KNX international standard for home and building control [4]. With the advancements in concepts of smart grid and smart home, CENELEC-C band could be a suitable choice for home network systems and enable direct transmission of metering data from the SM to devices located near the customers premises [5]. Authors of [6] considered interoperability between different standards and protocols as a main issue in the rising market of smart home.…”

Next Generation Real-Time Smart Meters for ICT Based Assessment of Grid Data Inconsistencies

“…Using real-time data of smart meters has also been reported in other works [8]. A framework for identifying multiple power line outages based on the PMUs' measurements in the presence of bad data is presented in study [25].…”

“…The presented cases deals with grid data inconsistency (data sets which are not consistent with the normal grid behaviour) by acquiring, as real-time data, the frequency and voltage level over different points of the network. Using real-time data of smart meters has also been reported in other works [8]. A framework for identifying multiple power line outages based on the PMUs' measurements in the presence of bad data is presented in study [25].…”

“…This instrumentation data (e.g., voltage u, current i, active power p, reactive power q) is not used at its full potential, for various reasons: the communication path is too slow, protocol is not appropriate for SCADA, etc. ; • load profiles (LP) of energy, instrumentation and of other data can be stored for medium to long periods, such as one month to several months, depending on the selected time period for LPs memorization; • Some electrical energy smart meters have functionalities to collect data from other local meters: gas, water or heat meters; this architecture enables multi-utility/multi-service smart metering [7], allowing improvements in energy and market efficiency; • Some electrical energy smart meters have a local interface to communicate with local devices and with end-users [8], thus enabling different services for final users.…”