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There Can Be No Smart Grids without Smart Metering
a report by
Andreas Umbach
President and Chief Operating Officer, Landis+Gyr Holdings AG
The future smart grid will transform the current  ‘one-way’ disk. This information was fed into the utility’s billing system and the
ransmission & Distribution
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infrastructure to a multidirectional, multifunctional, dynamic consumer was sent a bill for the power used. It was a relatively simple
system.  This dynamic system will balance central and decentralised world that did not attract much attention, unless something failed.
generation and create realtime transparency for all stakeholders,
providing the basis for a stable and sustainable use of energy. In this New Challenges and Demands on the Electricity Grid
new world, electrons are no longer generated centrally, running down Extensive demands  are now being placed  on the electricity  grid for
the wires to turn on lights and household appliances. In this smart which it was not designed, and these are creating new challenges.
grid the meter, originally designed as a measuring stick for kilowatts It started with energy market liberalisation in Europe in the 1990s and
per hour (kW/h), becomes the key for realtime information, enabling continued with concerns about climate change. Most recently, the EU’s
an efficient, effective and sustainable use of infrastructure and very ambitious 20–20–20 goals (20% increase in energy efficiency,
resources. However, this development will not simply occur of its own 20% decrease in CO
2
emissions and 20% share of renewable energies
volition. Although the construction of a smart grid is part of a wider by 2020) has added to these pressures. The advanced age of the grid
trend towards the creation of a global, digitalised information society, infrastructure, an imbalance between supply and demand and the lack
it is not pre-ordained. The creation of a smart grid will not follow a of realtime control and management capabilities at the distribution
Hegelian ‘march of history’ but will be the result of environmental and level inhibit the ability of the grid to meet future challenges – and these
regulatory policy decisions. A first step in this transition of the grid challenges are manifold.
must be the introduction of smart metering. It is the metering system
that forms the gateway and is the enabler of the grid. As  Wired The future electricity system must be able to accommodate large cross-
magazine wrote in 2001, “the current power infrastructure is as border trading flows and deliver  the level of reliability and security
incompatible with the future as horse trails were to automobiles”. of  supply that  customers have come to expect. It must be able to
handle the integration of large-scale renewable generation  and
Once Upon a Time extensive, locally distributed generation (see Figure 1). The modern grid
Until recently, power supply was a fairly simple process. A large must be flexible and the supply system must offer the opportunities for
steam turbine (usually powered by coal, gas or a nuclear reactor) demand-side management (DSM) and customer-driven value-added
turned a spinning electrical generator that produced electricity. This services. In other words, there is a growing urgency to make the
electricity was then sent via the transmission and distribution grid in grid ‘smart’. However, what is a smart grid? According to the European
a one-way flow to the final customers – either businesses or Technology Platform for the Networks of the Future, “a smart grid is
households – who then paid the power supplier for the electricity an electricity network that can intelligently integrate the actions of all
they consumed. The integrated utility would plan and build power users connected to it – generators, consumers and those that do both –
plants (generation capacity), operate the transmission grid to carry in order to efficiently deliver sustainable, economic and secure
that power overland and plan, build and operate the delivery electricity supplies”.
systems or distribution grid. The business model of a utility was
simple: generate as much as you can, keep the lights on and supply Transparency Is the Key
power in return for cash. As the grid develops from a one-way supply route to a dynamic,
interconnected system, the metering system will play a decisive role.
Likewise, metering was only about ‘feeding’ the commercial processes All of the challenges mentioned above, and especially the extensive
of the utilities. The metering system simply served as the ‘cash register’ energy and environmental goals the EU has set for itself, depend on
for commercial transactions. It measured the quantity of power the grid – and the gateway to the grid is the metering system. It is the
consumed over a specific period, usually a year or so since the last time meter that collects the information to create the transparency needed
a meter reader showed up to jot down the numbers above a spinning to efficiently manage the infrastructure, supply and implementation
of DSM. The logic is simple: no smart metering, no smart grid.
Andreas Umbach is President and Chief Executive
Officer of Landis+Gyr Holdings AG, the metering
Smart metering or advanced metering management (AMM) is a
business. Previously, he held posts at Siemens. He technology that provides automated bi-directional communication
received his BSc in mechanical engineering from the
between the energy meter and the utility. The communication is not
Technische Universität Berlin and his MBA from the
University of Texas.
limited to meter data alone but also includes information about
E: john.harris@landisgyr.com
consumption, tariffs, alerts and complementary services. AMM is not
simply a further development of the current metering infrastructure,
but rather the transition to a digital, information-based system. It
© TOUCH BRIEFINGS 2009
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