The Benefits of Smart Meters

Expert from Larsen & Toubro highlights the needs and advantages of smart metering
 The demand for electricity has been rising day by day the world over. In a lot of the developing countries, despite a large percentage of the area still being un-electrified, the generation is not able to match the demand for electricity. Even in developed countries, the need is being felt to add more generating stations due to the peak demand being higher than the peak available supply. But on the other hand, addition of generation is restricted due to non-availability of funds as well as the need to reduce the carbon footprint. Load shedding, peak power deficit, peak mismatch, breakdowns, are commonly heard words in electricity distribution circles, but more recently terms such as peak shaving, demand response, load side management, outage management, renewables integration, real time pricing, etc are becoming equally spoken about.
Behind the scene, it is the latest electricity metering technology, simplistically called “Smart Metering” which is the enabler for all these processes.
Electronic meters have been used the world over for industrial and commercial billing but with the use of electronic meters for residential consumers as well, the features which were available only to the high-end segment till recently are now also available in the residential meters. Interval data or load survey, time of day or time of use, failure or tamper recording, billing backups, prepaid or postpaid features, are all now part of the standard meter.

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