The key to energy saving: how to play the trump card of smart meter

　　Smart meters have begun to spread all over the world. Tokyo Electric Power, Japan's largest power company, also plans to introduce smart meters from 2014. Automation technology that can achieve energy saving by linking with home appliances is also being developed.

　　Electricity grids have been laid around the world since American inventor Thomas Edison invented the practical incandescent light bulb in 1879. In recent years, affected by environmental and energy shortage issues, countries have begun to develop a new generation of power grids that can improve the overall reliability and efficiency of the grid.

　　The market size will exceed 100 million units in 2016

　　Smart meters, the core device of the next-generation power grid, are now rapidly spreading around the world. North America and Europe are the main areas of popularization, and Japan has also begun to introduce them in stages. Including trial introduction meters, Kansai Electric Power has installed about 1.5 million units, and Kyushu Electric Power has installed about 180,000 units. Tokyo Electric Power, Japan's largest power operator, also plans to start introducing them in fiscal 2014. The company plans to install about 17 million smart meters that can cover more than 60% of users in its jurisdiction by fiscal 2018. As for Japan as a whole, the Japanese government has formulated a policy to meet 80% of total electricity demand with smart meters by 2016.

　　Europe, America and Japan are not the only countries and regions considering the introduction of smart meters. In Asia, for example, China and South Korea are also promoting plans to introduce smart meters. According to the US research company IDC, it is estimated that the global annual supply of smart meters will increase from 25.4 million in 2011 to 140.2 million in 2016. There are currently 1.7 billion meters in use worldwide, and most of them will be replaced with smart meters sooner or later.

　　Especially in Japan, people are paying much attention to smart meters. In the context of power shortage caused by the shutdown of nuclear power plants after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Japanese government, energy industry, home appliance industry and communications industry are all paying close attention to smart meters. Tokyo Electric Power Company solicited opinions on the performance parameters of smart meters from users from March to April 2012, and received 482 opinions from 88 companies.

　　Regarding TEPCO's smart meters, the performance parameters of the "measurement part" that measures electricity consumption have been determined, and the communication function specifications are currently being formulated. In addition to the five companies that produce existing meters, Toko Toshiba Instrument Systems, Osaki Electric Industries, Mitsubishi Electric, GE Fuji Electric Instruments, and Enegate, Panasonic has also announced its participation in the business.

　　Realize remote meter reading

　　Smart meter specifications vary by country or region, but the required functions are basically the same, including "remote automatic meter reading", "remote switching", "energy consumption visualization", "linking with EMS such as HEMS (home energy management system)", and the technology to realize these functions "two-way communication".

　　Early smart meters introduced in Italy and Sweden in the early 2000s were called “Automatic Meter Readers (AMRs)”. The only function required by AMRs was remote automatic meter reading using one-way communication.

　　The main purpose of introducing AMR is to reduce the cost of meter reading for enterprises and increase profits by improving meter reading accuracy. In the past, analog meters required meter readers to go to the site and read the meter values ​​with their naked eyes. However, AMR has communication functions such as infrared, and meter readers can collect meter reading data in a semi-automatic manner by extending the meter reader in front of the meter or passing through it nearby.

　　With semi-automation, a small number of meter readers can be responsible for meter reading in a large area, so the power company can reduce labor costs. In addition, because visual meter reading errors are eliminated, the power company can also more accurately grasp the power consumption. In other words, the electricity bill required by users is always correct, which helps to increase profits.

　　Later, AMR added a remote control function using two-way communication, and it was called the "Automatic Meter Management (AMM)" system. The main purpose of adding the remote control function is to prevent illegal use of electricity/gas. If someone uses electricity/gas illegally by illegally operating the meter, the power/gas company can quickly cut off the supply by remotely operating AMM.

　　However, the above purposes of introducing AMR or AMM are beneficial to energy companies, but for users, the introduction cost may be passed on to electricity or gas bills. Therefore, except for the energy industry, people have not been very interested in smart meters before.

　　However, in recent years, as awareness of environmental and energy issues has risen globally, the situation has suddenly changed. Many users, especially in developed countries, have begun to focus on energy conservation in their consumption behavior. In addition, the "reverse flow" of electricity provided by renewable energy sources such as sunlight and wind into the power system, which leads to overall instability of the power system, is also considered a major problem. For these reasons, the opportunity to use smart meters to achieve energy conservation and power system stabilization is becoming more and more mature.

　　Driven by these trends, the introduction of smart meters has two more purposes. One is to allow users to understand the amount of electricity or gas used in turn and urge them to reduce their use. The other is to achieve an overall balance of supply and demand by linking with the electricity/gas company and the user's EMS. The former has entered the practical stage in some countries, and residential displays that obtain and display information from smart meters have been commercialized in the United States and other places.　　Energy-saving automatic technology is also under development

　　Regarding the latter, the United States and other countries have begun to provide "demand response (DR)" services that adjust user energy usage based on the overall supply and demand balance. In addition, research on "automatic demand response (ADR)" that automates DR is also very active. Among them, the communication data model "OpenADR" developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States has attracted much attention because it was adopted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the United States.

　　OpenADR is a system where the operator's ADR server sends a "DR signal" to the user. The DR signal can send energy-saving requests, energy price information, energy system reliability and other information, and entrust the user to consider how to respond.

　　For example, when the controller of HEMS and BEMS (Building Energy Management System) receives a DR signal requesting energy saving via a smart meter, etc., the controller will formulate an overall energy saving plan and control the equipment according to the plan.

　　Japan is also conducting OpenADR demonstration experiments, and a project led by Professor Yasuhiro Hayashi of the Department of Advanced Science and Engineering at Waseda University Graduate School has begun implementation. However, ADR technology is still under development.

　　One of the research and development contents is the allocation of responsibilities between smart meters and controllers. Some people say that if energy companies start ADR services, they should allow all users to use them from the perspective of fairness. If only the controller can control the device, users who have not introduced HEMS or BEMS will not be able to use ADR. Therefore, people are currently discussing how to embed some device control functions in smart meters. However, there are also opinions that all device control should be done by the controller and the functions of smart meters should be simplified as much as possible.

　　Instruments that have been used as stand-alone devices will have "linked" functions. Moreover, they will become energy management infrastructure with the implementation of huge investments.

　　Smart meters will have an impact not only on electricity and gas systems, but also on homes, businesses, home appliances, communications, and EVs (pure electric vehicles). The infrastructure built by smart meters will become the "cradle" for the birth and growth of new services and technologies. ADR can be said to be the most typical example in this regard. As smart meters advance, advanced ADR services and technologies that take into account both "living comfort" and "energy saving" will also come out, and in order to cope with them, HEMS, BEMS, various home appliances, and EVs are also expected to make progress.