Future Smart Meters and Meter Data Management

摘要

This paper draws attention to the need for future open standard metering protocol to be usedin smart meters and Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI) to resolve the current challengesand also adopt new capabilities in future metering systems. It seeks to identify thefunctionalities to be considered in future smart metering standard, which are concluded fromreal cases of implementing AMR/AMI projects in NEPCO and EDCO utilities in Jordan. Theplanned smart metering standard is aspired to resolve the present shortcomings and introduceadditional new features.Multivendor deployment of metering system produces multiple metering protocols operatingin the AMR system. The AMR should include the corresponding protocols drivers to retrievemeter measurements. This make the AMR/AMI system more complicated due to theinteroperability issue. Also, other main weakness is that the limitations caused by someprotocols which causes discrepancy along the AMR system.As the AMI provides additional benefits in comparison to the AMR, but still needs morecapabilities to escalate the values achieved from implementing AMI. Adapting GeographicalInformation System (GIS) technology in smart metering will introduce versatile capabilities.Moreover, enhancing smart metering protocol to provide event-triggered feature appendsfurther advances in metering systems and its applications.The new innovations can be incorporated by developing new metering standard or moderatingpopular existing metering protocols. These improvements will provide new features andadvances for both utilities and customers, and should confirm the smart grid to become moresmart, robust and secure. The future metering protocol should utilize the evolution ofInformation and Communication Technology (ICT) to facilitate AMI spread.