Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Abstract— The growing demand of energy and the need of order to produce electricity, needs to draw from a primary
finding alternative energy sources to the traditional ones, due to energy source. The main ones are:
the progressive decrease of fossil fuels and an increasing concern x hydropower
towards the environment, have led to a revolution in terms of
energy production in the last decade. As a consequence, the
x the thermal energy from fossil fuels or natural vapors
distributed generation is more and more widely spreading. The underground (geothermal production).
network, in this new dimension, has to change its management However, in recent years, due to strong incentives, the weight
and the energy distribution so to achieve and maintain high of the so-called "distributed generation" has considerably
efficiency requirements. Coming to drop the concept of grown over the traditional centralized production. In fact, with
centralized production, it is immediate to conclude that an the gradual spread of the plants producing electricity from
efficient distribution of energy must necessarily bring into renewable sources such as photovoltaic and wind, the places
account the energy footprint of the area, because the energy of production and consumption of electricity tend to coincide.
transport should be always as short as possible, to minimize
Distributed generation represents a different mode of thinking
losses and maximize the efficiency of the network. This concept is
the core of the smart-grid idea, on which the global scientific
and managing the power grid, no longer, or not only, based on
community is investing heavily in research, the idea is a power large power plants connected to extensive networks, but on
distribution grid, based on the experience in the information and small-medium sized production units (wind farms, solar,
communications technology field, which can route the energy biomass power plants, co-generators), geographically
through appropriate algorithms that are able to determine the distributed and connected directly to consumers or otherwise
optimal path. Of course, behind all this there must be a network to low-voltage networks. In recent years there has been a
structure capable of acquiring detailed data from widespread significant growth in the diffusion of renewable energy
production and consumption of energy and make them easily systems. The most common types of renewable plants are:
available along with additional information, e.g. the Power
photovoltaic systems; small wind power system and micro
Quality of the energy exchanged. This information is demanded
by simple user, who wants to personally evaluate the functioning
wind power systems; biomass plants.
of the system, and also by technical personnel, who needs to In this sight, the electrical network should completely change
access to reliable data to perform targeted and efficient its role in order to guarantee suitable efficiency requirements.
interventions. In the present paper, the authors propose a smart It is intended to gradually change from a "passive" network, in
energy meter for energy management in power grids. The which electricity flows only from the place of production to
measurement system has been projected and developed point of consumption, to an "active" and "smart" network, that
according to the IEEE 1451 (ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451) guidelines. is Smart Grid, which is able to manage and regulate electrical
The system is based on a mobile application in order to improve flows traveling in a discontinuous and bidirectional way, [1],
the data exchange and availability.
[2].
The traditional concept of electrical network is also known in
Keywords — smart meter; energy accounting; IEEE 21451;
the literature by the name of "Grid", in which the nodes
mobile application.
represent the single buildings, which use energy or power
plants that produce it. Adjacent buildings can be grouped into
smaller networks at medium and low voltage ("microgrids"),
I. INTRODUCTION
able to exchange electricity between them or, possibly, with
The current global energy system is based mainly on a major production facilities. It is a structure divided into
reduced number of large power plants for the production of hierarchical levels comparable to the Internet network, in
electrical energy, usually powered by fossil fuels. The which energy flows traveling in a bi-directional way between
electricity is distributed through high-voltage lines, from the microgrid and the core high-voltage network. Moving
which medium and low voltage lines branch off, ranging up to towards an efficient system basically means to monitor flows
endusers. In such architecture, the energy flows are at various levels and adjust them, to reduce wastes as much as
unidirectional, from the producer to the user, who in this case possible. One of the major advantages of the proposed
has only a passive role as simple energy consumer. This approach is the shortening of the electricity transmission and
macro-system can be divided into several subsystems: distribution networks. High voltage networks lose about 7% of
production, transmission, distribution and user subsystems. the electricity transported along the way and, in addition it is
The production subsystem consists of the plants producing cause of high costs of construction and maintenance.
electricity and the power stations. Every power station, in Moreover, constant risk of interruptions and blackouts is
The user can interact with the chart area through touch,
Figure 3. Configuration user interface.
zooming with multitouch gestures and moving inside the chart
to analyze in detail different portions of it. A final tab shows
The user interface consists of five tabs: a configuration and the list of power quality disturbance events that have occurred
connection tab; a screen that shows the values of absorbed and during the day. Each cell of the table shows the type of event
produced power and energy, voltage and current THD and the and the time at which it is occurred; tapping on the desired cell
Power Factor; a third screen within which the graphs of daily the user accesses to detailed information on the event such as
delivered and absorbed powers, averaged over intervals of ten the peak voltage reached and the duration of the event. The
minutes, are shown. Each node can be selected interactively user can send commands to the webservice to check and
through a map on which are shown all the available nodes of change some configuration options of the acquisition system.
the network, considering, for example, an user owning Numerical simulations and experimental tests have been
multiple distributed production systems or a technician who carried out. The measurement system was able to correctly
has to do the maintenance for several clients. Once the unit to perform the monitoring of energy and Power Quality of a
be monitored has been selected, by default, the application distributed generation system, providing performances in line
displays information about the current day (Peak Power, with those of devices with similar characteristics. During tests,
Instantaneous Power, Power Factor, THD, and any transient the instrument was able to correctly identify the disturbance of
event), see Fig. 4 for reference. the Power Quality events, as defined by IEC regulations.
Experimental validation data will be reported in future works.
IV. CONCLUSION
In the present manuscript, the authors have proposed a smart
energy meter. The measurement system has been projected in
compliance with the guidelines of the IEEE 21451 Standards
family. An iOS application has been developed to provide
additional tools in order to facilitate the data sharing of energy
production and consumption and Power Quality parameters by
using a smartphone.
The system has an intuitive and user-friendly graphical
interface. The use of graphs and histograms makes it easy to
understand the results and to perform the comparison between
data and information.
The use of a web-service has made it possible to overcome the
main limitations of smart meters currently used on the market.
Figure 4. Node information. So data can be accessed easily via the Internet network and
without the need of using proprietary software. Moreover, it
Through a dedicated command, historical data can be shown. has allowed reducing the computational complexity of the
On the abscissa there is time variable in hour unit, starting at Smart Energy Meter.
REFERENCES [7] IEC 61000-4-7: Testing and measurement techniques – General guide on
harmonics and interharmonics measurements and instrumentation, for
[1] C. Muscas, Power Quality Monitoring in Modern Electric Distribution power supply systems and equipment connected thereto, 2009.
Systems, IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine, October [8] A. Delle Femine, D. Gallo, C. Landi, M. Luiso, Power-Quality
2010. Monitoring Instrument With FPGA Transducer Compensation, IEEE
[2] A.Molderink, V. Bakker, M. G. C. Bosman, J.L. Hurink, G. J.M. Smith, Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. 58, Issue 9,
Management and Control of Domestic Smart Grid Technology, IEEE september 2009.
Transactions on Smart Grid, vol.1, 2010. [9] L. F. Auler, R. d’Amore, Power Quality Monitoring Controlled Through
[3] L. Ferrigno, R. Morello, V. Paciello, A. Pietrosanto, Remote metering in Low-Cost Modules, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and
public networks, Metrology and Measurement Systems, Vol. 20, Issue 4, Measurement, Vol. 58, Issue 3, march 2009.
pp. 705–714, 2013. [10] A. Carta, N. Locci, C. Muscas, GPS-Based System for the Measurement
[4] C. P. Gupta, J. V. Milanovic, Probabilistic Assessment of Financial of Synchronized Harmonic Phasors, IEEE Transactions on
Losses due to interruptions and Voltage Sags, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. 58, Issue 3, march 2009.
Power Delivery, Vol. 21, 2006. [11] G.Betta, L. Ferrigno, M. Laracca, Cost-Effective FPGA Instrument for
[5] IEEE 1159, Transmission and Distribution Committee of the IEEE Harmonic and Interharmonic Monitoring, IEEE Transactions on
Power & Energy Society - Recommended Practice for Monitoring Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. 62, Issue 8, august 2013.
Electric Power Quality, 2009. [12] C. De Capua, E. Romeo, A Smart THD Meter Performing an Original
[6] IEC 61000-4-30: Testing and measurement techniques – Power quality Uncertainty Evaluation Procedure, IEEE Transactions on
measurement methods, 2010. Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. 56, Issue 4, august 2007.