What is the importance of monitoring smart meters?
This article describes the basic principles of electricity meters and the importance of accuracy to electricity meters. Introduced a solution to avoid electricity theft. In the more than 100-year history of the power industry, "smart meters" are still in the early stages of deployment and use. Since the meter is the front-end “cash register†of the power company, it must be very precise. Although there are a large number of requirements for electrical meters, performance specifications and regulations, and power companies try to ensure the accuracy of the meter, in fact, once the meter design is certified, manufactured and installed, the accuracy of most meters is only confirmed at the end of production. Factory test phase. The performance of a particular meter before retiring can only be estimated by statistical sample testing. In addition, electricity theft is the main source of revenue loss for power companies. Although it is generally believed that the problem is mainly in developing economies, it is also growing in many developed regions. For example, the UK's Office of Natural Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) released a report in July 2013 entitled “Blocking Stealing – Diagnosticsâ€, which estimates that the value of electricity theft in the UK is more than 200 million pounds per year, and the power company needs another Invest 25 million pounds to prevent electricity theft, repair or replacement of tamper-evident equipment. 1 It is important to understand the accuracy of the entire meter The main advantage of smart meters over electronic and mechanical meters is connectivity. Networked smart meters can remotely report power usage, implement power outage management, collect usage time data, and prevent certain types of power theft. However, is it possible to perform a more sophisticated diagnosis of the measurement functions critical to the meter itself? Other mission-critical industries, such as automotive and industrial, introduce the concept of “functional safety†to diagnostic requirements, which essentially checks equipment to determine if it is functioning before, during, and after use. One such function of the power meter industry is the accuracy of the meter during the lifetime of the field. At present, the meter performs on-site sample testing, and the internal components of the field meter are still kept within the calibration range to estimate the accuracy, but this method is risky. On-site accuracy monitoring is important because the accuracy is affected by the sensor and the sensor is exposed to high currents, voltage events, and harsh environments. Therefore, the diagnosis must include monitoring the entire meter, including the sensor and all electronic components. Meter accuracy checks often require human intervention, disconnection of field connections, and the use of specialized equipment, so significant cost or complex disassembly is required to complete on site. However, non-intrusive monitoring techniques for each meter can change this dilemma. 2 Big Data Analysis Opportunities The questions that information system architects need to consider are: “What would you do if you could get the accuracy of each meter deployed on site on a regular basis?†This capability removes faults and defective products, but better ability to collect and analyze the entire meter Group of information. Monitoring accuracy does not violate any regulations, but it provides the advantage of managing meters. Information is collected hourly or daily, and the amount of data is not too large, but the application potential is unlimited. Figure 1 shows the case where the group accuracy is monitored at high resolution, which extracts the difference in the group's lifetime. This provides insight into the differences in manufacturing batches, suppliers, deployment areas, or different grid topologies. This data can also be combined with other metrics such as season, temperature, humidity, and power usage to determine if future meter specifications need to be increased to provide more repeatable field measurements. In addition, after understanding the performance of the entire group, the objectives of the sample test can be determined to meet regulatory requirements. Implementing big data analytics across the entire meter group allows the power company to better handle the liability risks. 3 solutions To date, there have been no tests including the entire meter, field operation and self-test accuracy. Therefore, there is no mechanism to identify and report changes in device accuracy. This gap highlights the need for new monitoring technologies that continuously monitor the accuracy of the field meter and provide built-in, self-testing capabilities to check the performance of the meter over its lifetime. This technology must monitor the accuracy of the meter while the meter is running, without affecting the metering function. To address this challenge, Analog Devices developed the mSure technology (shown in green box in Figure 2) to continuously monitor the response of the entire meter by injecting a known reference signal into the sensor. After superimposition, the sensor can simultaneously detect the reference signal and the load signal. This combined signal is taken from the same path, so there is a digital form of the combined signal at the end of the electronics. The detection circuit extracts the unique reference signal component from the load signal. Once this step is completed, the system has a transfer function from the sensor to the digital representation of the entire meter. The same transfer function can be applied to the load signal to the digital representation so that the power company can determine the change in accuracy. To preserve energy data, the monitoring signal is digitally removed from the signal path, and only the source data is transmitted into the metering system. Thanks to its ability to monitor sensors and electronics, this technology can also be used to detect tampering methods that are not recognized by many existing "tamper-proof" meters. Even if the power company only blocks a small amount of tampering, it can significantly improve profitability. 4 Summary Current meters are certified, calibrated, and factory tested prior to supply and installation to ensure compliance with a complete set of accuracy and performance standards to meet different standards for implementation in different regions. After that, the accuracy of the meter can only depend on the degree of trust (component quality and statistical testing). By adopting strict meter monitoring methods, power companies can use the inherent connectivity of smart meters to provide non-intrusive field accuracy testing, better use big data analysis to understand the accuracy of the entire meter deployment, and reduce meter stealing. Waterproof Speaker,Full Range Loud Speaker,Entrance System Speaker,Waterproof Multimedia Speaker Jiangsu Huawha Electronices Co.,Ltd , https://www.hnbuzzer.com
