Smart metering

I went to an excellent talk about smart metering a few weeks ago given by Ian Graham of Landis & Gyr (the largest metering company in the world). The talk was hosted by the IET in West London.

Smart metering is exciting a lot of interest at the moment, mainly for its potential as a tool to combat climate change. In recent times, the drivers for deploying smart meters have been more economic and technical, including:

• The ability to read meters in hard to read areas
• Reducing cost of meter reads and billing
• Billing requirements driven by legislation, e.g. in Sweden utility companies are not allowed to estimate bills
• Load shifting e.g. in Australia non-essential electrical goods can be turned off if necessary.

Metering has not taken off in the UK, in the same way as it has in Continental Europe due to the deregulated market in the UK. It has been difficult to justify investment given the number of different players in the market, all with different objectives and roles: suppliers, distribution company and meter operators. The drivers and benefits described above would not accrue to the agency who actually purchase the meters, and more pertinently, consumers can change suppliers every 28 days. So if a supplier were to invest in a smart meter for a particular consumer could be wasted if they decide to change supplier after only a month of use.

Recent interest is being driven by environmental legislation and public pressure on government as well as the rising fuel prices. There is a range of relevant energy and environmental legislation from national and EU governments. Ian Graham identified the following:

- Energy End Use ESCO EU Directive
This requires meters to show information on time of energy consumption, provide regular accurate billing, and allow comparisons to previous consumption data.

- Stern report
There was a section in the Stern Report outlining the role of information and policy in changing behaviour.

- OFGEM 'Energy Review' and 'Innovation in Metering'- allows suppliers to tie customers in for more than 28 days thus potentially enabling suppliers to justify the investment.

- Government reports on the possible environmental benefits of smart metering and in-home displays

- £10m DTI funding for trials in budget-- trial technology. Manufacturers making proposals to supplier
Trials hope to prove that customers are better able to manage and reduce consumption if better informed. Current research shows that consumers save 5-15%. Government trials to validate.

Ian discussed the methods used to save energy, both the stick and carrot approaches.

Stick approaches included:

- Time of use tariff-- different costs at different times of use

---> shifting consumption around, using capacity on the network and reflecting the cost of generation

- Block or shoulder tariff-- different cost after a certain consumption
-- used to collect your standing charge.

- Budget model-- prepayment mode
-- meter will disconnect after a certain amount consumed

- Load limiting
e.g. don't allow more than 10 amps to flow at a gtiven hour.

However preferred methods should focus more on the carrot by persuading the customer to change behaviour.
persuade the consumer to change behaviour. Currently billing is a 3 month control loop. Consumer information is key-- need fast feedback. The act of consumption should be linked to its cost.

So what is needed in order to do this? The devices should have an interface to allow decision making, with communications between metering devices delivering rapid availability of data. All the data should be available in one display and the display should be mounted where the consumer wants it and will use it. The difficulty at the moment is that gas and electricity meters are often not together, and are often installed in relatively inaccessible places (under stairs cupboards, or in common areas in apartment blocks). Consumers need flexibility of installation.

The good news is that there are smart meters available on the market today which fulfil these requirements. There are some issues around interoperability between models from different manufacturers which are being worked on. The main obstacles to adoption in the UK are the commercial ones outlined earlier. It is hoped that a combination of consumer and legislative pressures will drive the market to make them available…