Smart meters for mitigating electrical accidents

A load switch in a smart meter is a relay or circuit breaker that controls the flow of electricity through the meter. It can be remotely operated and is designed to disconnect the electrical load if certain conditions are met. This capability enhances safety by enabling immediate response to dangerous situations.

- Dr. RAJESH KUMAR ARORA

In today's evolving energy sector, smart metering is ready to become a game-changer in optimising electricity management. Smart meters provide real-time data that allows utilities to monitor, manage, and control electricity usage patterns. Further, this ensures accurate billing and reduces operational costs. Above all, for consumers, it offers greater transparency and control over their energy consumption, leading to potential cost savings and more informed decision-making.

The basic concept of smart meter

A smart meter is an AC static watt-hour meter with time-of-use registers and internal connect and disconnect switches with two-way communication capability. It is designed to measure the flow of forward (import) or both forward (import) and reverse (export), store and communicate the same along with other parameters defined in the standard. It shall be remotely accessed for collecting data/events and programming for select parameters.

The smart meter is a component of Advanced Metering Infrastructure. For this standard, the smart meter is conceived as a single unit comprising the following functional zones:

• Metering,

• Load switch,

• Metering protocol, and

• Communication modules.

The smart meters may be widely used, and the buyer may choose desired features to meet the objectives of their overall system and site conditions. The smart meter architecture is categorised into two variants to facilitate such a flexible approach. The two variants are diagrammatically represented in the figures below respectively. These variants apply to both built-in and pluggable types of smart meters. The main components are described below:

Smart meter functional requirements

The smart meter developed as per the standard is required to support the handling of the following operational requirements:

Disconnection mechanism