Previously we have discussed water smart meters and the benefits that can be derived for both water utilities and the customer. Smart meters can have also been developed to measure gas and electricity consumption. Smart metering has been comparatively slow to penetrate gas suppliers however ,principally because of the characteristics and nature of gas. Utilities cannot restrict the flow through a meter (and thus limit load) as this would affect the pressure of the gas delivered to an appliance and consequently its operation and safety. Remotely reconnecting gas powered appliances would be hazardous as gas could flow out into a building from appliances that have been left on after an outage or disconnection.

Figure 1: Gas Smart Meters provide more detailed data for the Consumer & Utility Company

Gas smart meters are being used however, and the benefits of gas  smart meters are clearly defined. Gas smart meters can be polled following outages instead of utility employees having to go door to door to reenable service. The information provided by gas smart meters is also much richer and can help utilities to explain consumption patterns to their customers, for instance, the impact of cold weather on natural gas usage and the consequences for the monthly bill. A type of demand response is also possible using gas smart meters as utilities can charge customers different prices for using gas at different times of the day.

A recent report by British Gas estimates that gas smart meters can cut energy bills by about a third - UK£400 per year on average. A field trial of 50,000 smart meters undertaken by British Gas shows not only a reduction in bills but also a 40% drop in billing enquiries. 85% of triallists found that smart meters were easy to use and the display of cost information on screen encouraged households to turn off appliances when they are not being used. One issue to note however is that only 44% of participants felt that smart meters were reducing their energy consumption.

The British Gas trial deployed both gas and electricity smart meters and it is the latter which are the most well known type of smart meter. Electricity smart meters have benefits both for the utility and the customer. Demand Response which exposes customers to peak electricity prices and encourages them to modify their electricity consumption accordingly would not be possible without electricity smart meters. As there is a communications link between the smart meter and the utility, the location of outages can be identified quickly and enable the utility company to verify that outages have been resolved at every meter location. Given the richer pool of data provided by electricity smart meters, grid engineers can pinpoint bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the network by analysing the periodic data generated by smart meters. Forecasting and load balancing can also improve using this new data resource.

Figure 2: Electricity Smart Meters benefit Consumers, Utility Companies and the Environment

As well as reducing cost for the consumer by encouraging the better management of consumption, some government bodies require utlities to reimburse customers for electricity they produce on-site and feed into the grid. This is known as net metering as the utility will subtract the amount of electricity produced from the amount of the electricity taken from the grid. The consumer then pays or receives the net amount. This is becoming feasible as more and more consumers in the coming years will have their own small renewable energy facilities such as a wind turbine, solar power or home fuel cells. Net metering programs are underway in Ontario and British Columbia in Canada and are being planned as part of Amsterdam's smart city initiative.

Of course, the chief driver for electricity smart meters is an environmental one. Being provided with information on their consumption should encourage consumers to manage and reduce their energy use. In other words, consumers are incentivised financially to reduce their electricity consumption. Energy consumption that is more spread out rather than a series of peaks and troughs means more efficient operations for the utility and less peaks and stress for infrastructure. In theory, this should also means less infrastructure being built in terms of transmission lines and new plants and distributed electricity generation using wind and solar power.  Furthermore, the previously discussed Demand Response can reduce emissions and the finer level of data generated by smart meters facilitates the calculation of a consumer's environmental footprint. Smart meters and smart grids should also lead to smart appliances that can sense overload on the grid and reduce their own power usage accordingly.

We have now discussed the main types of smart meter. In the next article we will discuss current issues in smart metering, Meter Data Management (MDM) and the implications of smart meters for IT.