Data acquisition solutions for electricity consumers connected to smart grids

摘要

More and more devices are nowadays connected all over the world creating a complex grid that generates large volume of data. This is enhanced by various smart metering applications that collect, process, analyze heterogeneous data sets and extract valuable information to their owners. Apart from conventional energy meters that provides only monthly feedback regarding the total consumption, smart meters allow shorter time intervals readings, implementation of advanced tariff scheme, less effort regarding physical reading and other benefits for grid operators and electricity consumers. In this paper we propose an architecture that includes several acquisition data protocols, data integration in relational and NoSQL databases, business intelligence solution and cloud computing that offer more information regarding electricity consumption for individual appliances. Based on these features, consumers will be able to analyze the efficiency of particular appliances or group of appliances for cooling, illumination, ventilation and so and to identify obsolete appliances that should be replaced. They could also rapidly identify interruptions, spikes or other abnormal operation by notifications and alerts. This way smart meters activate the electricity consumers' behavior by stimulating energy awareness and savings. Cloud computing provides capabilities for smart grid platforms in storage, analysis, and applications (elastic resources, shared services, energy management), and addresses some challenges and opportunities of smart grid. We will also propose an alternative, cheaper and more flexible smart meter built on an Arduino platform that could bring more data and information than a smart meter.