Energy companies should brace themselves for a massive increase
in data volumes when they implement smart metering, delegates at an
energy conference heard today.
Speaking at a smart metering conference in London, Eugene Park,
senior director of application service at
Pacific Gas and Electric
(PGE), said that when the utility company decided to go ahead with
its smart metering project, it was unprepared for the increase in
data volumes, which rose by 300 times.
At the time, PGR had been almost wiped out by Enron's fraudulent
manipulation of energy prices. Since then it has become a
poster child for smart
meters and smart grid applications.
Smart data collection
Park said it had taken a long time to build the business case
for smart meters at PGE. The breakthrough had come when it stopped
considering only meter retirement as the key factor, and included
factors such as outage information and the ability to manage demand
more tightly.
"Customer care became our focus after that," he said.
Previously, the firm collected information that allowed it to
bill consumers once a month. The smart meter system now collects it
every hour, and stores it in an
Oracle meter data management system before it goes to various
SAP applications for further processing.
Data collection has had a massive impact on data processing
loads, as well data storage requirements, as regulations require
PGE to keep its billing data for seven years, Park said.
PGE now has about one million smart meters installed, and is
adding 10,000 a day to cover the rest of its six million
customers.
Park noted that PGE had also underestimated the impact of meter
installation rates on the supply chain. This caused problems at the
start, but the system is now running smoothly.
Greater potential
PGE uses a "pervasive" radio-based communications network to
send and receive data at the meters. Each has two radio
transceivers - one for the local cellular network, the other for a
mesh radio system, Park said.
He said that once people saw that the network had spare
bandwidth, they started exploring what else it could be used for.
New applications include controlling sub-stations and sending and
receiving consumer information using "Do-nuts", line conditioning
devices for home networks.
Park said the original network was based on powerline
communications technology that gave it a bandwidth of 30 baud, or
four bytes per second. The new radio network offers a huge boost in
bandwidth, making new applications feasible.
One is to charge customers five times the normal rate for using
power between 2pm and 6pm in an effort to raise their awareness of
the need to
conserve energy and to change their consumption habits.
Park said PGE hopes to have a pilot smart grid working by 2012,
which would offer energy pricing in real-time and allow consumers
to sell back energy from their own solar and wind generators.