SMART Metering –
Requires SMART Technology
The potential benefits of ‘smart metering’ and ‘smart grids’ are reasonably well known and
recognisable, yet the technical issues surrounding deployment of this technology remain.
By Dr. Gary M. Vasey
SMART METERING PILOT roll-outs, and Smart Metering in the UK
even full scale roll-outs, are underway In the UK, the regulator OFGEM has been actively promoting
(one example being energy company smart metering and championing its benefits for the industry. In
Enel of Italy rolling out 30 million smart February 2006, OFGEM published the findings of its consultations
1
meters). Part of the technical challenge with all sides of the industry and in June the same year published
lies in the transformation of millions of its decision document in which it asserted that, “introducing
meter readings to actionable informa- smarter forms of metering for domestic electricity and gas cus-
tion so that utilities can use the data to tomers could help to: improve customer service, increase domestic
improve the management of their energy efficiency (helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions),
assets and lower costs. reduce fuel poverty and increase security of supply.”
2
OFGEM’s efforts have not been lost on the UK government
Microgen Aptitude
which, in part, is seeking ways to support its carbon emission
reduction initiatives promising that smart metering and visual dis-
Microgen’s Aptitude is an integrated Business Process
Management Suite (BPMS) which offers business process
play roll-outs over the next decade would be a part of their over-
management, business rules, integration, web forms and
all energy plans.
3
services orchestration. It is integrated, using one language,
Despite the upsurge in interest in smart metering in the UK, a num-
one interface and one data model for all components. This
ber of barriers have acted to restrict its development, including:
means both business users and IT work from the same
•
The costs of providing and installing smart metering outside the
environment. Microgen Aptitude was designed for the high
normal process of new installation and replacement is prohibitive.
transaction volume and complex calculation rule
•
Under the current UK industry structure, it is unclear where the
environments traditionally found in the financial services
balance sits between those who would pay the costs of smart
and utilities markets.
metering and those who accrue the potential benefits.
Microgen Aptitude is well suited to environments that
•
The risk of stranded assets has made it unlikely that suppliers will
have large amounts of complex data, require very high
pay for large scale meter provision as part of their own market
throughput and need complete transaction control and/or
offering development activities.
complex event processing. This is because Microgen
•
The need to support parallel processes with some customers on
Aptitude provides Transaction Process Management (TPM)
regular meters and some on smart meters creates short to medi-
with comprehensive transaction control, high performance
um-term challenges during any transition phase to large scale
flow management and a throughput capability of over
smart metering.
30,000 transactions per second for Extreme Transaction
Processing (XTP).
Nonetheless, the UK government’s Department of Trade and
Industry (now known as the Department for Business, Enterprise and
In fact, XTP is a new area of emphasis within the IT world
and is defined by the Gartner Group as, “an application
Regulatory Reform – DBERR) was allocated GBP10 million to help co-
style aimed at supporting the design, development,
finance a pilot study in the use of smart meters and feedback
deployment, management and maintenance of
devices amidst rapidly growing interest in the technology. A recent
distributed transaction processing applications
conversation with an industry contact in the UK stated that “smart
characterised by exceptionally demanding performance,
meter deployment is no longer an ‘if’ but a ‘when’.”
scalability, availability, security, manageability and
dependability requirements.”
Technical Challenges
There are also other, more technical issues to overcome. For exam-
Microgen Aptitude is able to provide TPM with XTP owing
ple, there is currently no standard meter and no standard communi-
to its roll back and commit capability within an Event
Driven Architecture (EDA). This also enables Straight
cation protocol. Given the growing global interest in smart metering,
Through Processing (STP) in addition to traditional batch
change is rapid in terms of new device introduction, new protocols
data processing. Support for EDA and XTP is further
and proprietary standards and likely to stay that way for some time.
complemented by Microgen Aptitude’s ability to fully
As LogicaCMG point out in their recent whitepaper on the topic:
promote and conform to a service oriented architecture.
“There is no single successful approach to smart metering. The appro-
priate blend of business processes and technology employed will
74 SEPTEMBER 2007 COMMODITIES NOW
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