Smart metering for demand management and energy

Abstract

This research study focuses on demand management and energy conservation through smart metering. The discussion here is based study on smart metering and implementation of new methodologies to promote energy conservation via two way interaction. Smart metering, a key element of the so-called smart grid, has been touted as a great bright hope that will enable residential and industrial electric customers to cut their usage, thereby reducing greenhouse gases as well as their monthly bills. Smart meters are still evolving and many developers try to add new features to provide more interaction between the consumer and the supply authority. Improved measurement technology by displaying all per phase information and three phase information on LCD at the meter side, automatic meter reading, power quality and exported energy measuring capability are the main features of the implementation. Electricity demand forecasting for 15 minutes, maximum demand warning for industrial consumers, energy and cost forecasting for better energy conservation are the originality of this research. The digital meter was developed using ADE7758 energy measuring chip and 18F452 PIC microcontroller. The data are sent to a remote server via SMS using SIM900 GSM module.PCF 8583 real time clock IC was used to read the time and generate alarm signals. The phase information, frequency, active energy, exported energy, power quality measurements, electrical demand, date and time are sent to the server. The server handles the incoming SMS, processes the data, displays and stores the required information. Energy consumption and its cost, average daily energy consumption and cost prediction for the month are calculated in the server side. The demand forecasting algorithm is developed for industrial smart metering applications. Electricity demand within 15 minutes is forecasted by analyzing demand pattern. The warning signal is generated when the demand is higher than the user specified value. Therefore if there is a sudden increase in demand this methodology helps to identify and warn the consumer via SMS. The expected demand within 15 minutes, percentage value of the expected demand as a ratio to user specified demand and remaining time to reach the demand are calculated and sent to the consumer to take any actions to drop down the demand. This warning signal will be beneficial to the industrial consumers who are interested in save on maximum demand charge through proper load management.