http://smartgridman.com/index.php en steve.coller@milsoft.com Copyright 2010 2010-01-25T20:38:24+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/comparison_of_existing_grid_with_intelligent_grid/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/comparison_of_existing_grid_with_intelligent_grid/#When:20:38:24Z A Smart Grid Overview Article in IEEE Power & Energy Magazine, January/February 2010, pp 18-28, provides a number of interesting ideas.  This includes a comparison of an imagined intelligent grid to the existing grid.  I am interested in your reaction to my expanded comparison. . . . The January / February 2010 issue of the IEEE Power & Energy Magazine has an interesting Smart Grid overview article by Hassan Farhangi with the Technology Centre of British Columbia Institute of Technology.  I was particularly interested in Figure 1 on page 20, a comparison of characteristics of the existing grid versus an intelligent grid.  I expanded the comparison for a recent presentation at Ignite Austin.  EXISTING GRID //  SMART GRID Centralized //  Distributed Hierarchical //  Network Monolithic //  Modular Fixed Assets //  Mobile Assets Reliability via installed capacity //  Reliability via monitoring & control Electromechanical Switching //  Digital Switching Sparse sensors //  Manifold sensors Few remote controls //  Many remote controls One-Way, Intermittent, Proprietary Telecom //  Two-Way, Continuous, IP Telecom Blind //  Self monitoring Manual Check, Test, Restore //  Automated Check, Test, Restore Economies of Scale //  Economies of Flexibility Concentration Of Risk //  Dilution Of Risk Installed Capacity As Insurance //  Monitoring And Control as Insurance Asset Failures & Service Interruptions //  Adaptive & Self Healing Limited customer information, options, control //  Unlimited customer information, options, control I would be interested in your comments regarding how an intelligent grid will differ from the existing grid?   2010-01-25T20:38:24+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/choose_internet_protocol_Internet_for_your_smart_grid_communications/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/choose_internet_protocol_Internet_for_your_smart_grid_communications/#When:18:41:29Z Electric utilities have till now used proprietary, closed telecommunications systems for communications with their AMR devices.  The Smart Grid and Smart Meters will ultimately require open, industry standard Internet Protocol (IP).  If you are contemplating Smart Meter deployment, you should choose a packet switched, IP telecommunications system, not a proprietary, circuit switched one.  Electric utilities have till now used proprietary, closed telecommunications systems for communications with their AMR devices.  The Smart Grid and Smart Meters will ultimately require open, industry standard Internet Protocol (IP).  If you are contemplating Smart Meter deployment, you should choose a packet switched, IP telecommunications system, not a proprietary, circuit switched one.  What is the difference between packet switched IP telecommunications and proprietary, circuit switched ones currently being used for AMR communications? “Circuit switched” means that data is communicated in a continuous stream over a dedicated communications circuit.  The easiest example to visualize is the old telephone systems where the operator physically plugged your line into a switchboard for the duration of a conversation.  Almost all AMR devices in use today communicate via a dedicated telecommunications path or circuit which may be fiber, wire or wireless.  Some of them utilize power line communications by which each meter communicates via a signal superimposed over the distribution line back to the substation.  They may communicate simultaneously over a unique frequency band for each endpoint, or communicate serially, one at a time, or be multiplexed in some way. “Packet switched” means that the message is broken into small, independent packets of data (1s and 0s) with an origination and destination address and indexing information to allow them to all be recombined when they arrive.  Each packet takes whatever path is available, and the packets do not necessarily all travel on the same path or arrive in the same order that they were sent.  This allows the packets of data to be rerouted in the event that any particular path (circuit) becomes overloaded or unavailable.  The Internet is the ultimate packet switched network.  Smart Grid and Smart Meter communications in the future will be mostly if not entirely via packet switched networks using Internet Protocol (IP).  In fact, most of this will ultimately occur via the Internet, not LANs and WANs owned and operated by the utility. The advantage of packet switched communications over the Internet are many: 1.  Capacity, speed & reliability The Internet is for Smart Grid and Smart Meter purposes, a practically infinite capacity, nearly instantaneous (i.e., no latency), two-way, digital, self healing network.  When is the last time that you remember the entire Internet being down?  Never!  When was the last time that you got an email back with the message “all circuits are busy now” or “the network does not have enough capacity to accommodate your message”? . . . or “your message wasn’t delivered because the Internet was out of service”? 2.  Open, industry standard There is a global industry standard for packet switched telecommunications over the Internet . . . TCP/IP (transmission control protocol / Internet protocol).  Every Internet device uses this protocol.  With circuit switched telecommunications, bandwidth may be limited, latency may be significant, reliability may be poor, and not all transceivers are compatible on any given network.  For example, meters from different vendors using power line communications are not compatible or interchangeable, and cannot even coexist on the same system.  Even wireless communications from different vendors may not be compatible or interchangeable.  That means that if your current AMR vendor cease to be able to satisfy your needs, or another vendor offers better features, prices or terms, you may have to entirely replace your legacy system with the new vendor’s system.  For example, Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative in Bastrop, Texas, is taking out their entire recently completed power line communications AMR system to replace it with a Smart Meter and IP based telecommunications system from Silver Spring networks.  In fact, Pike Research stated in a report released in November that, “Major utilities worldwide, enticed by savings and prodded by governments, are embarking on wholesale replacement of over 45% of the North American and European installed base by 2015, breaking the traditional 15-20 year meter replacement cycle.”  Smart Grid potential gated by broadband 3.  Mix and match vendors and devices A global industry standard means that you can mix and match compatible equipment no matter the vendor, and within limits, no matter the vintage.  For example, if you need a new wireless router at your home, you can go get one at Best Buy and not worry at all which brand to get as long as it meets the global IEEE 802.1X standard.  Similarly, any Internet compatible “appliance” (e.g., hard drive, webcam, DVD drive, Smart Meter) regardless of the vendor will communicate via the Internet. 4.  Ubiquitous Internet vs constrained utility telecomm networks In the not too distant future every single home or business in the USA will have access to broadband Internet.  Almost 80% already do.  In fact, they will likely have multiple means . . . wired and wireless.  Remember that most mobile telephone networks are increasingly Internet capable as well.  This means that it is no longer necessary for an electric utility to build and operate its own proprietary telecommunications network to communicate with its customers.  You’ll hear a lot of horror stories about “hacking the Smart Grid” but they are red herrings and straw men.  Billions of people worldwide use the Internet for communications, commerce & banking, entertainment and even remote monitoring and control with adequate safety and security.  5.  Consumers will own and operate Smart Meters and home energy management systems Consumers are already beginning to acquire and use their own metering methods and devices ranging from Google Power Meter and Microsoft Hohm to GreenSwitch and Tendril.  These will communicate via the Internet, most likely via wireless technologies.  Consumers are going to want to be able to access these devices and systems via the web, perhaps even by iPhone app, even when they are not home, and they may not be owned or operated by the electric utility. 6.  Consumers increasingly demand self service web portals Many of your customers will want (if they are not already asking you for) the ability to do their business with you from service orders to billing / payment to monitoring service quality via self service web portals.  There is no way that you could offer the scope and range of communication over your own telecommunications network as can be obtained via the Internet.  Any of your members can communicate and do business with you with an Internet device anywhere in the world. I believe that any Smart Meter technology that will remain viable into the forseeable future have to be able to communicate via IP on the Internet.  If the manufacturer that you are dealing with only has a proprietary communications protocol (i.e., a closed system with a proprietary method that no other vendors use) then you should only do business with them if they can demonstrate to you how you will be able to migrate to IP communications for some or all of the endpoints AND be able to accommodate and preferably integrate other Smart Meter and Home Energy Management System (HEMS) devices from other vendors.  I am convinced that in many ways the Smart Grid will simply be an extension of the Internet . . . or, as Robert Metcalfe says, the Internet will be the control plane for the Smart Grid Internet as control plane for Smart Grid. Here are links to some more resources that you could take a look at:     Packet switched communicaions for smart meters     C/NET article about Smart Grid and broadband Internet communications     Paper on implementing Smart Grid communicataions Thanks for visiting and reading my smartgridblog.  Your comments are welcome. 2009-12-03T18:41:29+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/some_take_aways_from_the_2009_nrucfc_independent_borrowers_executive_confer/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/some_take_aways_from_the_2009_nrucfc_independent_borrowers_executive_confer/#When:16:10:22Z I attended and presented Smart Grid issues and methods at this conference in Tucson.  There was much exceptionally good content, and lots of opportunities to network with electric cooperatives and vendors.  I heard several things in the presentations that I thought were particularly useful. . . . I attended and presented Smart Grid issues and methods at this conference in Tucson.  There was much exceptionally good content, and lots of opportunities to network with electric cooperatives and vendors.  I heard several things in the presentations that I thought were particularly useful. Keynote speaker Marcus Buckingham was simply terrific . . . great content and hugely entertaining.  He suggested that, to succeed, an organization needs a single driving mission . . . “Who do we serve?”  I firmly believe that the Smart Grid movement also needs some simplification in this regard.  I believe that the principal focus and the primary beneficiaries of the Smart Grid should be the customers.  Marcus also suggested that an organization, in order to succeed, needs to have a single, overriding metric for success.  Again, the Smart Grid could benefit from this as well.  I believe that the overriding metric for success should be whether customers are obtaining what they want from their electric utility. In a breakout session, “Should Your Co-op Be on Facebook?” presenter Greg Brooks of Walton EMC said, “YouTube gives us our own TV station!”  He observed that it is very unlikely that his utility will obtain live media coverage except when there is sensational bad news.  But, YouTube gives customers the opportunity to find and view a variety of video information that they are interested in.  All of the presenters suggested that utilities must rely more upon customers pulling to themselve the information that they are interested in, and doing it from diverse web resources, and less upon pushing information that the utility is interested in to customers through traditional media. I’ll try to relay more of my take aways in the next few days. 2009-11-20T16:10:22+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/kurt_yeager_of_galvin_electricity_initiative_identifies_favorite_arra_smart/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/kurt_yeager_of_galvin_electricity_initiative_identifies_favorite_arra_smart/#When:16:07:25Z You all know that I have strongly supported Kurt Yeager’s view that most of the ARRA SMIGs will not really advance a truly Smart Grid.  Read Smart Grid Today’s report of Kurt’s favorite SGIGs at Yeagers Favorite SGIGs 2009-11-16T16:07:25+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/gridpoint_acquires_admmicro_expands_market_focus_to_include_the_ci_sector/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/gridpoint_acquires_admmicro_expands_market_focus_to_include_the_ci_sector/#When:20:44:00Z Milsoft Utility Solutions’ fellow Hometown Connections vendor partner, Gridpoint, has acquired ADMMicro to expand its market focus to include commercial and industrial consumers. . . . GridPoint’s press release  says: “GridPoint is pleased to announce the acquisition of ADMMicro, a leading provider of energy management systems to the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector.  This acquisition extends GridPoint’s smart grid solutions to a broader customer base, furthering the company’s mission to transform the global distribution and consumption of electricity. ADMMicro enables enterprises to cost-effectively increase their energy efficiency.  The Roanoke, VA-based company’s energy management and submetering systems automatically monitor and control energy consumption, including high load systems such as HVAC and lighting, at thousands of sites nationwide. ADMMicro’s clients include public sector and Fortune 500 businesses, including leading national retail, pharmacy, and restaurant chains. Gridpoint will leverage the combined expertise in data analytics, user interface design and energy management to provide significant benefit to both producers and consumers of electricity. To learn more about GridPoint, visit GridPoint. 2009-11-09T20:44:00+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/reminder_mrea_accessing_the/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/reminder_mrea_accessing_the/#When:14:20:12Z This Thursday and Friday will be the Minnesota Rural Electric Association Conference “Accessing the Electric Cooperative Market for Renewable Energy” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This Thursday and Friday will be the Minnesota Rural Electric Association Conference “Accessing the Electric Cooperative Market for Renewable Energy” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. SmartGridMan will be attending and presenting at this landmark conference on renewable energy for the electric cooperative market.  Hosted by the Minnesota Rural Electric Association and Dorsey and Whitney LLP, the two-day conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota is intended to inform renewable energy developers on the electric cooperative market.  National leaders and experts on renewable energy, Smart Grid and rural electric cooperatives will be presenting at the conference, including yours truly, SmartGridMan. To register, visit MREA or call MREA at (763) 424-1020. Read the images below for more information, or download the Program Flier. 2009-11-09T14:20:12+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/prepaid_meters_may_be_the_smartest_meters_in_the_industry_right_now/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/prepaid_meters_may_be_the_smartest_meters_in_the_industry_right_now/#When:16:19:02Z I was recently delighted to find a brand new electronic meter on my house.  It was put there by one of the most progressive public power systems in the nation (i.e., Austin Energy).  Yet, I still get billed the very same way as if I still had that 100+ year old electromechanical meter technology mounted on the East wall of my home.  Some time after the utility reads the meter (now without having to send a live person into my neighborhood to do it), I get a bill in the mail or I can view it online.  It is a total dollar amount for my energy consumption for the past billing period, about a month.  There is no detail at all about by day of the month or by time of day.  There is no information at all about which of my appliances account for what portion of the total.  Even if some or all of this information were available, by the time that I get the bill, I have already made the decisions that caused my energy consumption and spending for that billing period. I was recently delighted to find a brand new electronic meter on my house.  It was put there by one of the most progressive public power systems in the nation (i.e., Austin Energy).  Yet, I still get billed the very same way as if I still had that 100+ year old electromechanical meter technology mounted on the East wall of my home.  Some time after the utility reads the meter (now without having to send a live person into my neighborhood to do it), I get a bill in the mail or I can view it online.  It is a total dollar amount for my energy consumption for the past billing period, about a month.  There is no detail at all about by day of the month or by time of day.  There is no information at all about which of my appliances account for what portion of the total.  Even if some or all of this information were available, by the time that I get the bill, I have already made the decisions that caused my energy consumption and spending for that billing period. I have called my utility (ad gone to their website) to ask, “How much have I spent on electricity so far this month?”  They cannot tell me.  “Wait for your bill,” they said.  Obviously, then, they could not tell me how much I spent yesterday or the same day a week ago or in the last hour, etc.  So, I asked them some questions about the last monthly bill that I got from them.  They could not tell me anything about which days, much less which hours of the day, cost me the most.  They could not tell me how much of my energy consumption or costs was caused by which appliances.  They offered to provide me with a lot of data to try to estimate this for myself.  I’ve been looking at it.  Have you ever tried to understand your electric bill?  Sheesh!  Customer charge, kilo-watt-hours, price per kilo-watt-hour, adjustment factors, etc.  What is a kilo-watt-hour, anyways.  Why are there so many more on the bill the past few months than there were earlier in the year?  How much of the bill was caused by my yard full of Halloween decorations?  (Oh, yeah, that will be on the bill that I get in December?) Then I asked them if they could tell me how much of what I spent on the last bill was for coal power and how much was for wind energy.  And while the customer service representative remained polite, he was obviously ready to be done with my call after he had to tell me that he had no idea how big my carbon footprint was for the month in question.  I am assuming that I just lost the cell phone connection (and that he didn’t just hang up on me) when I asked when they would be able to tell me how much my carbon foot print is and how much of it is accounted for by the four big screen plasma TVs in my home. I have a friend who has a prepay meter device.  It’s a kind of pay as you go arrangement where she goes online to add funds to her account when it gets low.  After learning more about how her arrangements works, I see that if I have a prepaid meter, I can know in almost real time what I have spent since the last time I made a payment.  With a little time and effort (monitoring and calculation), I can figure out what I am spending per hour.  With more time and effort (turning appliances off one at a time and repeating the hourly calculation) I can begin to understand which appliances are driving my energy consumption and costs.  With a even more monitoring and calculation, I can figure out how the utility’s price (actually, my cost per hour for a given menu of appliances running) is changing.  If I invest a lot more time and effort, I can start turning appliances off and on at the right times to save money (or reduce my carbon footprint, or help the utility not have so many outages).  It’s sure a pain going up in the attic to turn the hot water heaters on and off, though.  Especially when I’m not at home.  There’s got to be an easier way to do this? Why won’t the smart meter that recently appeared on the side of my house do the same thing?  Why can’t I choose to see this information in real time in an iPhone app?  After all, I’m not at home a lot of the time.  Why doesn’t my utility offer an iPhone app that will let me turn some appliances off when the utility is charging me the most?  What if I want to turn some appliances on only during the times when I am sure that the additional power that Austin Energy gets for me is from wind or solar or natural gas and not from coal or nuclear? Again, as I asserted in my post earlier this week, a smart meter needs to be (and existing technology options make it possible to be) much more than a real time price signal.  It needs to be an “easy button.” 2009-11-04T16:19:02+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/a_smart_meter_must_be_more_than_a_price_signal/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/a_smart_meter_must_be_more_than_a_price_signal/#When:13:40:18Z Most of what is being offered today as smart metering is mature automatic meter reading (AMR) technology which, in some cases, has additional functionality (e.g., time of use (TOU) metering, service status (on/off) monitoring and reporting, remote disconnect, etc.).  While the newest generation of AMR devices represents substantially more advanced technology than the 100+ year old, electromechanical meter, it is pretty much yesterday’s not tomorrow’s technology.  The industry conversation about smart metering focuses on meters that will provide customers with and base utility billing on accurate, time-of-use price signals with the expectation that customers will greatly reduce and more carefully schedule their energy consumption in ways that will achieve a panoply of goals most of which are more immediately beneficial to the electric utility than to the consumer.  Utility experience suggests that better information on energy consumption and pricing can yield some benefits resulting from changes in consumer behavior.  Much more is required, and much more is possible.  What will be required for a truly Smart Grid is something substantially different and better, a quantum leap, not an incremental evolution of AMR.  Most of what is being offered today as smart metering is mature automatic meter reading (AMR) technology which, in some cases, has additional functionality (e.g., time of use (TOU) metering, service status (on/off) monitoring and reporting, remote disconnect, etc.).  While the newest generation of AMR devices represents substantially more advanced technology than the 100+ year old, electromechanical meter, it is pretty much yesterday’s not tomorrow’s technology.  The industry conversation about smart metering focuses on meters that will provide customers with and base utility billing on accurate, time-of-use price signals with the expectation that customers will greatly reduce and more carefully schedule their energy consumption in ways that will achieve a panoply of goals most of which are more immediately beneficial to the electric utility than to the consumer.  Utility experience suggests that better information on energy consumption and pricing can yield some benefits resulting from changes in consumer behavior.  Much more is required, and much more is possible.  What will be required for a truly Smart Grid is something substantially different and better, a quantum leap, not an incremental evolution of AMR.  What qualifications do I have to express an opinion on Smart Meters?  I have been involved in electric utility planning, operations and management throughout my 35 year career including assisting electric utilities and electric utility customers with issues related to the metering and pricing of electricity.  I was turnaround CEO for an automatic meter reading technology company, Util-LINK LLC, in Nashville, Tennessee from 1999 through 2001.  I spent the next five years at the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative coordinating the application of electronics, information and telecommunications technologies for electric and telco utilities.  I have worked for the past three years at an industry leading smart grid software vendor.  I am a active member of Utilimetrics and of the Gridwise Alliance.  You are welcome to review my curriculum vitae on LinkedIN. I have for many years worked closely and successfully with almost all of the AMR vendors.  They are fine companies who serve their customers well.  What I have to say in this post should not be taken as denigrating their products or services in any way.  Rather, my commentary is about what I believe that the state of the art must be in smart metering in the context of what will be necessary for a Smart Grid.  The future holds dramatically different motivations, justifications, and requirements for smart metering.  Like Yogi Berra said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” The best smart metering technology that is commercially available today is really mature automatic meter reading (AMR) technology which, in some cases, has some additional functionality (e.g., time of use (TOU) metering, service status (on/off) monitoring and reporting, remote disconnect, etc.).  Most relies upon proprietary, circuit switched telecommunications with limited bandwidth and considerable latency.  Most AMR communications is primarily one-way (i.e., inbound) with limited capabilities for full two way communications.  Most of these enhanced AMR systems are incompatible with each other (i.e., endpoint devices or operating platforms cannot be mixed and matched in the same utility without a lot of effort and headaches).  The AMR systems which utilize power line communications usually cannot even co-exist on the same electric distribution lines.  The newest generation of AMR devices represents a substantially more advanced technology than the 100+ year old, electromechanical meter, but it is pretty much yesterday’s technology, not tomorrow’s.  I believe that what will be required for the Smart Grid is something substantially different and better, a quantum leap, not an incremental evolution of AMR. So, what should a smart meter do?  The industry conversation about smart metering seems to focus primarily on meters that will provide customers with and base utility billing on accurate, time-of-use price signals with the expectation that customers will reduce and/or more carefully schedule their energy consumption in ways that will achieve a panoply of goals . . . reduce carbon emissions, allow for better utilization of existing electric utility assets, defer the need for additional generation/transmission/distribution assets, improve reliability, efficiency and economy, transfer market risk from shareholders to customers, protect national security, and many more.  Clearly, empirical evidence suggests that better information on energy consumption and pricing can yield some benefits resulting from changes in consumer behavior.  Even so, few customers will be willing or able to develop the expertise to interpret complex energy pricing and consistently manage their energy consumption to achieve their own economic and other goals, much less those of their electric utility.  I believe that a smart meter much do much more than provide a price signal. So does US Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, who told the audience at Grid Week in DC in September that consumers need an “easy button” to accomplish their goals. What should a Smart Meter do?  There are several basic requirements. 1. A smart meter must be an intelligent electronic device (IED). A Smart Meter needs to do everything that the traditional electronic meter can do electronically . . . monitor, record and report electric energy consumption.  And, it must be able to do it by time of day.  And it may need to provide consumption and pricing and data to the consumer.  But, it needs to do a lot more if it is going to work in a truly Smart Grid.  When I think of a smart electronic device, I tend to think in terms of a smart phone.  It is not an electronic replacement for my old rotary dial, wired to the wall, dumb phone.  And it is not a smart phone because it can tell me exactly what I have spent or am spending on my phone service.  It is a smart phone because it does a variety of things that I want to do no matter where I am.  It is a mobile communications and computing device with ever increasing, customizable applications.  It can even operate as a remote control.  Neither should a smart meter simply be an electronic replacement for the monolithic, 100+ year old, electromechanical monitoring device that is affixed to the exterior of the consumer’s premises.  Technology offers so much more, and so much more is needed to achieve a smart grid.  If a utility is going to spend several hundred dollars per customer to deploy smart meters, why not take full advantage of electronics, telecommunications and information technology?  Put in an iMeter! A smart meter must be able to provide the utility and the consumer with information about the quality of service, not just the price and quantity.  The quality of service to a consumer includes on/off status, blinks, voltage, flicker, power factor, harmonics.  Furthermore, whether the utility plans to rely upon the consumer or upon automated energy management systems, it will be desirable if not necessary to segregate the monitoring, analysis and control of consumption between among the various appliance and other devices on the premises.  A smart meter must also be able to monitor, analyze and act upon other information besides consumption quantity and price.  Some customers will almost certainly want to make energy management decisions based upon other criteria in addition to or instead of price.  They may want to minimize the carbon footprint resulting from their electric energy purchases.  They may want to schedule their energy consumption to take maximum advantage of the availability of renewable energy (e.g. allow discretionary appliances to run only when the incremental energy on the grid is wind?).  They might want the utility to know where they have parked their plug in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) away from home so that the consumption and bill can be allocated correctly. It’s unlikely that most or even many consumers will have the expertise, ability or even willingness to spend much time and effort monitoring and managing their electric energy consumption (and distributed generation / storage!).  They will want a black box, and “easy button,” that can automatically monitor, analyze and control their energy consumption to achieve their goals.  And their own goals may be more important than price.  Their own goals will not likely be, implicitly or explicitly, to optimize the distribution grid or minimize shareholder risk or even to reduce consumption or cost.  Smart meters will need to be able to interact with the utility, the consumer and even third party devices and systems that the consumer may use (e.g.,  energy management systems, distributed generation / storage devices, power quality protection, etc.).  These IEDs will need to be remotely programmable so as to allow for the implementation of new features and functions that will be needed in the future that are may not be obvious now, or that might become available through new technologies and applications. 2. A smart meter must us two-way, broadband Internet communication. This is the 21st Century, the Internet Age.  All data is digital, and all digital data will ultimately be handled by packet switched, TCP/IP communications over a mosaic of wired, wireless and fiber broadband networks.  This is high speed, big bandwidth, instantaneous, two-way communications.  And it has to be able to communicate in real time with the utility, with the consumer and with other devices and systems that the utility or consumer elects to use. If a video game (e.g., Wii) or a smart phone or a digital video recorder or a streaming movie player box (e.g., NetFlix’s Roku) can communicate this way via the Internet, shouldn’t a crucial element like a Smart Meter be able to? Anything less is not taking full advantage of the state of the art in technology.  This means IP addressable so that the utility and its systems as well as the consumer and his or her systems can access it from anywhere.  It needs to be an extension of the Internet.  It should not rely upon proprietary, circuit switched communications.  And it should not be limited to only the telecommunications network(s) owned or controlled by the utility. 3. A smart meter must be incorporated into a meter data management agent (MDMA). This is the service oriented architecture (SOA) of smart metering.  A truly smart meter will be able to collect, analyze and act upon large quantities of live data from both the utility and the consumer (and maybe from other sources as well).  This live data will be useful if not essential for a wide variety of electric utility functions . . . planning, operations, billing, customer service, etc.  This requires real-time control system capabilities and interfaces.  This isn’t your father’s AMR metering and billing software.  It is an advanced meter data management agent.  4. A smart meter must be interoperable with every other device on the Smart Grid. This goes way beyond the smart meters being able to interface / integrate with the other electric utility software and systems through an industry standard interface or SOA.  It involves being able to handle a variety of smart meters from different vendors in mix and match combinations throughout the electric utility.  In the Smart Grid there may be a variety of energy and energy related service providers who not only need access to the meter but may actually provide their own metering and energy management devices.  Consumers may purchase their own energy management systems that use distributed metering throughout the premises.  Appliances may come with their own metering and energy management devices built in.  5. Web services Many if not most smart eter capabilities need to be accessible via web browser.  The consumer will no doubt want to be able to access their data and take action remotely, want to be able to do it 24/7/365, and want to do it whether they are at home or elsewhere.  An in-home display device connected to a single utility owned meter will not be enough.  On the other hand, it is way too much.  Consumers already have PCs, smart phones, online media centers.  Why do they need or even want yet another device, particularly one that is wired or otherwise confined to the premises?  They less and less carry separate phones, PDAs, cameras, music/video players, GPS, books and instead carry a smart device that gets to all of this via the Internet.  Ditto for their smart meter.                                              So, where do you purchase a Smart Meter that meets all of the above requirements?  Unfortunately, I do not know of one, at least not one that fully realizes all or even most of the requirements that I have described.  However, there are several existing vendors who provide a smarter meter that does much more than an electronic equivalent of the electromechanical meter, and more than an enhanced AMR device with time of use pricing.  And most of them along with a lot of new market entrants are planning to develop and provide a smart meter that is much more like what I have described.  If you are looking for a smart metering solution for your smart grid deployment, I have several pieces of advice. First, if a utility has not already locked into a technology choice for metering, they should wait a bit.  They should concentrate on applying advanced technology to optimize their distribution grids with IEDs, digital communications and state of the art ERP, CIS, E&O and other software systems.  In parallel, they should continue to investigate and evaluate other utilities’ smart grid and smart metering activities.  As they make smart meter plans, they should be careful to work with vendors that have cogent, documented plans to migrate to a full realization of the requirements that I describe above.  And test them out with pilot projects rather than leap with both feet into a system-wide deployment. The announcement on last week of the 100 USDOE ARRA Smart Grid Stimulus Investment Grants provides an ideal source list.  Watch what each of these are doing and learn from their experience, good and bad.  You can find the winners at Smart Grid Stimulus Investment Grant Winners  If a utility has already deployed a new AMR system, or can’t wait to do so, then it needs to be prepared to augmented or even replace in the near future by better technology solutions that incorporate more of the functionality that I have described herein.  Electric utilities must in general they be prepared to upgrade incrementally to new technology much sooner than has historically been the case for utility capital investments.  While the already deployed AMR and other devices may continue to be in working order for 35 years, available technology will be so much better that they will be obsolete.  Competitors will be using it and customers will be expecting if not demanding it. Fortunately, if the utility is careful to do business with vendors who are firmly committed to interoperability over broadband Internet, it will be easier and easier to mix and match smart metering and smart grid solutions.  My favorite, real-world point of reference for my view on smart meters is Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative in Bastrop, Texas.  CEO Mark Rose, and his staff have the best vision and plans for a smart grid of any electric utility that I am aware of.  They fairly recently completed a 100% deployment of an AMR system at a cost of millions of dollars.  As they contemplated what will be required for the Smart Grid, they decided to completely replace this inadequate solution with a truly smart meter technology.  Their plans are summarized in the following excerpt from their recent application for USDOE ARRA Smart Grid Stimulus Investment Grant funding:           Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative is seeking $18.8 million in grant funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The funding will allow the cooperative to complete the next phase of its Sustainable Grid initiative.           In 2010, we will start upgrading the existing 2 way metering system for all 80,000 meters, introducing features such as             * advanced meters capable of self reporting outages             * a wireless and fiber communications network             * in-home wireless devices that will allow members to read their meter, understand their load and know the real time cost of their consumption             * a Web portal, which will provide every member access to the grid via the Internet             * the cooperative will begin to implement an energy conservation and demand response program that will encourage members to set up energy networks to manage their electric load” Bluebonnet has entered into agreements with Silver Spring Networks for Smart Meters and smart meter data management,  and with Home Area Networks (HAN) and Control4 for the communications with their customers.  They utilize Milsoft software for engineering analysis, outage management and IVR.  They use SAP for ERP/CIS.  Their vision and plans for a Smart Grid go way beyond most of what I am seeing reported in the trade press.  I think that they are on the right track. What do you think?     2009-11-02T13:40:18+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/current_group_successfully_demonstrates_interoperable_prime_smart_metering_/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/current_group_successfully_demonstrates_interoperable_prime_smart_metering_/#When:21:01:48Z Find the full story at PR Newswire: CURRENT DEMONSTRATES INTEROPERABLE PRIME 2009-10-08T21:01:48+00:00 http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/smart_grid_innovation_will_be_more_aggressive_by_co-ops_public_power_develo/ http://smartgridman.com/index.php/site/smart_grid_innovation_will_be_more_aggressive_by_co-ops_public_power_develo/#When:16:27:11Z Not for profit electric cooperatives and public power systems, as well as developing countries have more to gain and less to lose from the revolutionary changes that Smart Grid entails.  Take a look at the story of the boy who harnessed the wind to see an example. Not for profit electric cooperatives and public power systems, as well as developing countries have more to gain and less to lose from the revolutionary changes that Smart Grid entails.  Take a look at the story of the boy who harnessed the wind to see an example. Review Gizmodo’s report of this amazing story:  The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. In the USA and other developed countries, we already have and have had for many years a plentiful supply of reasonably economic and reliable electric energy.  And we have huge, incumbent utilities who are intent upon: (1) protecting their market share, (2) amortizing less than optimum capital investments, and (3) trying to transfer risk and effort to their customers.  This is why I think that true Smart Grid innovations will be led in the US by public power systems and electric cooperatives . . . and by folks in developing countries who have an immense amount to gain and little to lose from the revolutionary changes that the Smart Grid will bring. 2009-10-08T16:27:11+00:00