Smart Metering Deployment Scenarios in India and Implementation Using RF Mesh Network

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1 Smart Metering Deployment Scenarios in India and Implementation Using RF Mesh Network Antara Mahanta Barua Department of Electronics K.K. Handiqui State Open University Guwahati, Assam, India Pradyut Kumar Goswami Assam Science & Technology University Guwahati, Assam, India Abstract Smart Meters are being deployed in India on the basis of pilot projects by various utilities. The aim is to provide the consumer and supplier an easy way to monitor the power consumption regularly. Deployment of smart meters needs proper selection and implementation of a communication network depending on the features that the situation demands. In fact the design of the smart meter depends on the requirements of the utility company as well as the consumers. In this paper, we present an overview of smart metering deployment scenario in India. This paper also focuses on the smart metering system implementation with special reference to the northeastern region of India as well as some key challenges facing during the implementation process. Keywords-Smart Metering; RF Mesh Network; Challenges. I. INTRODUCTION GPRS; The power system in India is facing huge challenges including inefficient grid structure, inadequate generation, power theft, low metering efficiency, frequent outage etc. It is evident that such critical issues cannot be solved within the confines of the existing electricity grid [1]. There is a need to transit from the existing grid to the next generation electricity grid called smart grid to allow pervasive control and monitoring of the power system. The purpose of the Smart Grid is to use advancements of information and communication technology to make the power system more efficient, reliable, secure and resilient while minimizing costly investments in new centralized generation capacity. One of the main motivations for the Smart Grid is an increased level of observation and control of a complex power system to facilitate distributed and renewable energy generation. The Indian power sector has started its journey to cope with new challenges. Government of India (GOI) has taken various initiatives to upgrade the generation, transmission and distribution sectors of the power system. Launching of the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R- APDRP) for implementing some of the technologies such as SCADA, GIS, Consumer Indexing, and DT Metering is one of the most important initiatives taken by the Ministry of Power (MoP), Govt of India [2]. Smart Grid Pilot Projects in India is another initiative of MoP, GOI with the following certain objectives: (1) Decentralized power generation; (2) Reduction of AT&C losses; (3) Outage management; (4) Managing load during peak hours; (5) Integration of renewable energy into the grid. The Ministry of Power had taken early steps in 2011 by forming two organizations, the India Smart Grid Task Force (ISGTF) and the India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) which allocated 14 smart grid pilots in different states of our country [3]. A pilot would be needed before large scale deployment. There are also several additional initiatives that various entities have been undertaking working in their domain for Smart Grid support and implementation in India such as CEA, BIS, CPRI, BEE, etc. One of the most important key elements of the smart grid infrastructure is the integration of smart meters. Smart meter is an advanced energy meter that measures consumption of electrical energy providing additional information compared to a conventional energy meter [4]. Smart meters are installed in the consumer level and a server is maintained at the utility provider side that facilitates bidirectional communication between the two ends using wireless or wired communication technology. II. SMART METERING DEPLOYMENT IN INDIA Realizing the growing importance of Smart Grid technologies in the Indian power sector, Ministry of power has allocated 14 smart grid pilot projects that are implementing by state-owned distribution utilities in India. [5, 6]. At present, there are total 10 smart grid pilot projects are under implementation stage. All selected pilot Projects involve installation of Smart Meters for the purpose of reduction in distribution losses and reliability improvement. The Functionalities covered under these projects are Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Power Quality Management (PQM), Outage Management System (OMS), Peak Load

2 Managements (PLM), and Decentralize Generation (DG) [7, 8]. In India, the development of smart metering system is still in the early stage. Table I provides summary of the smart meter implementation across the country [9]. TABLE I. OVERVIEW OF SMART METER DEPLOYMENT IN DIFFERENT STATES States Assam Tripura West Bengal Haryana Himachal Pradesh Punjab Puducherr y Karnataka Gujarat Telangana Major Utilities APDCL Phoenix TSECL WIPRO WBSEDCL, Chemtrols UHBVNL NEDO, Japan HPSEBL Alstom PSPCL Kalkitech PED Dongfang CESCL SGIA - Enzen UGVCL TSPDCL SGIA - ECIL Date of Award Sanctio ned Cost (Crores ) Mar' No. of Consum ers 15,083 Sep' ,676 Jun' ,275 Apr'14 Feb'15 Mar' May' , , ,734 34,000 Mar' ,824 July ,422 Oct' ,904 Assam: In Assam, smart metering implementation programme is introduced by Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) in APDCL utility has awarded the project to M/S Phoenix IT Solutions; a Hyderabad based company and estimated numbers of consumers to get the smart metering connectivity. The main focus of this pilot is peak load management with the other interventions such as Industrial and Residential AMI, integration of Distributed Generation, Power Quality Management and Outage Management System. Tripura: In Tripura, Tripura State Electricity Corporation Limited (TSECL) has started the pilot project covering 42,676 consumers under Agartala power division-1. To implement the project, TSECL utility selected WIPRO and the approved cost is Rs Cr. The entire project is expected to be completed in two years and successfully implementation of smart meter system would significantly reduce power theft as there will be direct control of the entire system from the utility center by utilizing DCU through satellite. West Bengal: West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL) utility introduced the smart metering project in West Bengal. The main objective of the project is reduction of AT&C losses and Peak Load Management (PLM). It covers 5,275 consumers by implementing AMI for residential & industrial consumers. Total cost of the project is Rs 7.03Cr. Haryana: The pilot project covering 11,000 consumers with the plan to reduce peak load consumption and AT & C losses. Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited (UHBVNL) executed the pilot project under a grant from New Energy & Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Japan reduced peak load consumption. Total cost of the project Rs.20.07Cr. Himachal Pradesh: Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Limited (HPSEBL) utility involves in the smart metering project that proposes to cover 1,251 consumers by implementing AMI for industrial consumers. The project is awarded to Alstom in February, The main focus of this pilot is Peak Load Management (PLM) and Outage Management System (OMS). Total cost of the project is Rs.19.45Cr. Punjab: Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) utility proposed the pilot project to cover 2,734 consumers. The main objective of the pilot is to reduce peak load consumption, AT&C losses and cost of billing. Total cost of the project is Rs Cr. Puducherry: Puducherry Electricity Department (PED) has started the smart grid pilot project for 34,000 numbers of consumers and the contract is awarded to Dongfang in May, Total cost of the project is Rs 46.11Cr. Karnataka: In Karnataka, smart metering pilot project is introduced by Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation Limited (CESCL) utility in 2014 and the contract is awarded to Enzen Global Solutions Private limited. The project covers 21,824 consumers and the total cost of the project is Rs 32.59Cr. Gujarat: In Gujarat, Uttar Gujarat Vij Company Limited (UGVCL) utility has started the project in It proposes to cover 39,422 consumers with the target to reduce peak load, transformer failure rate, meter reading cost number of outage. Telangana: In Telangana, Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TSPDCL) utility involves in the implementation of the project which is awarded to the agency ECIL in October, The project covers 11,904consumers and the total cost of the project is Rs 41.82Cr.

3 III. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION The smart metering system implemented by APDCL is structured in three parts: the smart meters mesh network, the Data Concentrator Unit (DCU) and the Head End System (HES). In this system, a smart meter is installed in every consumer unit and a server is maintained at the service provider side. Meters can calculate both Time of Use pricing (TOU) and Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) based on demand of consumption. A. Smart Meters Mesh Network The smart meters used for the project are advanced solid state digital devices capable of recording energy consumption data including voltage and power factor information. These meters are configured to record data at 15 minutes interval and enable two-way communication between the meter and the control center system. All meters support remote disconnect or reconnect of power supply and when a meter performs disconnect operation all outgoing power circuits from the meter will be disconnected. To confirm the current state of a meter, the smart metering system will support "On-Demand" remote polling of the meter to determine whether meter is energized or not. AES 128-bit Encryption Data storage for Smart Meters Remote Network Management Automatic start-up and initialization following power restoration Events and fault record collection and management C. Head End System The Head End System is located at the utility control center and the meter data from the DCU is sent over the GPRS WAN connections. It is the critical interface to the system which support Meter Data Acquisition, two way communication, poll meters for data collection, send programmable parameter inputs to meters, send Load Curtailment signals, Connect/ Disconnect signals and other signals as generated from the Meter Data Management System (MDMS) to the smart meters. MDMS is an important part of this system which is a single repository of all meter data. There are two ways in which data are reached to the HES. Push which means the DCU sends the data collected from the meters to the HES and the HES acknowledge the receipt of the data. In case, DCU is not able to send the data to the HES, the DCU would store the data and re-transmit the same to the HES whenever the connectivity is available. Pull means the HES is requesting for data like meter information, load survey, tamper information or billing data from the DCU. TABLE II. PUSH INTERVAL AND RESPECTIVE PARAMETERS Figure 1. Installed Smart Meter (Source: APDCL) B. Data Concentrator Unit The Data Concentrator Unit (DCU) collects meter information; load profiles and events from the smart meters through Radio Frequency (RF) communication network and feed the traffic to the Head End System (HES) in an encrypted and compressed form via General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) wireless communication media. The DCU provides metering data as per schedule or on demand from a specific meter or all meters in the Neighbourhood Area Network (NAN) [8]. The main features of DCU are: Creation and Management of RF mesh network Provides two-way communication with Smart Meters and HES RS485 Port of connecting Smart Meters GSM/GPRS integrated communication Consumer based Push Interval (mins) Industrial 15 Commercial 15 Residential 240 Parameters required kw, kwh, V, I, Pf, F, Date &Time kw, kwh, V, I, Pf, F, Date&Time kw, kwh, V, I, Pf, F, Date&Time In case of demand response or tamper events data are sent in 1 min to the server. The developed smart metering system facilitates an alternative data collection method. When AMI is not able to collect data through DCU due to any reason, there is a provision of data collection through Common Meter reading Instrument (CMRI) via Optical Port of the Meter which should be integrated with the MDM system. There should be a RS-232 port in all the meters in addition to the optical port for data collection. IV. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE The Smart Metering Infrastructure (SMI) is composed of smart meters in a mesh network, data concentrators

4 and utility control system. A smart meter measures the amount of energy consumed by a customer and submits the data to DCU periodically. A two way communication is achieved from meter to DCU over RF mesh of frequency range MHz and from DCU to HES over GPRS technology and vice versa. Figure 2. Block diagram representation of SMI Mesh networking offers a way to connect short distance communication to cover larger geographical area. This type of network especially used in the areas where the meter population density is high. Mesh RF Technology includes acceptable latency and large bandwidth and typically operated at 915 MHz frequency [10,11]. A Neighbourhood Area Network (NAN) is formed using RF mesh technology where data are sending from multiple meters to a DCU located on the poles or Distribution Transformers (DTs). The Wide Area Network (WAN) is formed using GPRS technology where data are transferred from DCU to HES of frequency band MHz. The advantages of this technology are low maintenance, low power consumption, wide range coverage and high flexibility. But the individual connections are expensive. The Home Area Network (HAN) refers to the devices that a meter can communicate the real time price, load disconnect/connect within customer premises. The meters can connect to the In Home Display device through a communication module i.e. zigbee or PLCC to inform the consumer of their electricity usage. Figure 3. Conceptual Architecture deployed by APDCL About numbers of smart meters are connected to 1 GPRS modem which is linked to the Network Management System (NMS) directly for spread out locations. There are total 177 numbers of DCU are connected for numbers of consumers. The number of meters to be connected to a DCU will depend on the capacity of the DCU and concentration of the meters in the area and other technical consideration. The MDMS performs long term data storage and management for the huge amount of data delivered by the smart metering systems. In this system, the consumer can check their energy consumption information periodically on the web using internet and receives SMS by using developed android based mobile. V. DESCRIPTION OF THE PILOT PROJECT The network of the project is divided into three subdivisions and each division considered different numbers of consumers depending on the load capacity. Following tables shows the summary of the consumers, total load and maximum demand for three sub-divisions. TABLE III. LOAD/LOSS VALUE UNDER THE PILOT PROJECT Sub-division Paltanbazar Ulubari Narengi Load Connected KW Maximum Demand MW Expected Reduction MW AT & C loss % Expected Reduction % Nominal TABLE IV. NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS UNDER THE PILOT PROJECT Subdivision No. of Consumers Total Upto 5KW 5-20KW 20-84KW 85 KW Paltanbaza r Ulubari Narengi The major activities of this pilot project are:- a) Installation of Smart Meters b) Development of Smart Meter Network c) Development of Control Centre System d) Set up of Communication Network e) Development of Meter Data Acquisition System that will capture usage with time stamp, voltage, reactive power. f) Development of Meter Data Management System that will generate billing application

5 based on TOU/CPP, maintain energy accounting, analysis of load etc. g) Building of Customer Outreach and Education. h) Development of Management Information System reporting on smart grid pilot project. In order to achieve the success of the pilot project, APDCL has to organize awareness program with the consumers of the pilot area on Smart Grid pilot project. The communication network for the project should be very reliable and it has to maintain privacy and cyber security of the different data of the consumers on a priority basis. VI. KEY CHALLENGES FOR SMART METER IMPLEMENTATION The evolution of the smart grid and smart metering system in India is not an easy task as the Indian power sector poses a number of challenging issues such as minimizing Transmission and Distribution losses, electricity theft, lack of awareness etc.[12]. The major challenges to be faced while implementing the smart metering technology are as follows. Power theft: In India, power theft is one of the major challenges for power distribution system. Some preventive measures for power distribution like use of insulated overhead lines and insulated cables instead of LT overhead wires must be undertaken by the Government to minimize the power theft through hooking of cables. The replacement of traditional meters with smart meters and use of pre paid card is another solution to prevent the theft of power. Lack of awareness: Most of consumers are not aware of how the power is delivered to their homes. Therefore, before implementing the Smart Grid concepts, consumers should be made educated about the smart grids and its benefits. Consumers should also be made aware about their energy consumption pattern at home, work place etc. Inadequate grid infrastructure: Development of a modern sophisticated and intelligent grid is considered to be the most important for rapid economic growth in India. A stable environment for investment in electric infrastructure can be provided by the only reliable and secure system i.e. smart grid. Cyber security and data privacy: Communication security has became a major challenge with the replacement of analogous electricity infrastructure to digital one. As digital networks are more prone to malicious attacks from software hackers, security becomes the key issue to be addressed. Financial issue: One of the major challenges in establishing smart grid infrastructure in India is the availability of funds. The launching of smart grid infrastructure has been delayed as a huge amount of investment is required to setup a link between a consumer and the smart grid. Key Challenges during the pilot stage: Testing facilities for Smart Meters Interoperability Issues and Integration with existing system Adoption of Smart Grid Regulations Business Case on Smart Grid Skill development of utility staff Consumer Engagement. VII. CONCLUSION In this paper, the deployment status for smart metering infrastructure in India, its implementation and challenges involved have been discussed. The developing of smart metering system is an important part of the vision of smart grid forum of India. Implementing a smart metering system with a large number of distributed smart meters forming a mesh network can provide sufficient information of power quality in an area. Although several challenges still need to be tackled we can expect the future smart metering network will connect different types of consumers in a highly populous country like India. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank for their support the Assam Power Distribution Company Limited, the partner of APDCL project Phoenix IT Solutions ( and the Assam Electricity Regulatory Commission (AERC) for the fruitful discussion. 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