Growth of any country is dependent on a variety of factors. One such important factor
is Power. The Central Electricity Authority (CEA)'s latest Load Generation Balance
Report, mentions India's current improvement in Energy and Peak deficit as 1.1%
and 2.6% respectively, which is primarily due to slow industrial growth. The economy
is expected to grow in coming years and this will stimulate growth in the industrial
sector too.
Apart from variation in demand, India is also witnessing increased contributions
through renewable energy and the government has ambitious plans to increase it still
further. Increase in renewable generation, variation in demand and significant AT&C
losses demand a robust and intelligent infrastructure to deliver power to consumers,
which in turn necessitates the need for a Smart Grid.
Advanced Metering Infrastructure commonly known as AMI is one of the important elements
of Smart Grid. The AMI includes Smart Meters, Meter Interfacing Unit
(MIU), Meter
Data Acquisition System (MDAS) / Head-End System (HES) and Meter Data Management
System (MDMS). The Advanced Metering Infrastructure enables the following functionalities:
- Remote meter data collection
- .Time of day (TOD) metering
- Net metering
- Tamper and anomaly notification
- Connect/Disconnect
- Load Curtailment
- Possibility to upgrade firmware
- Pre-paid metering
Advanced Metering Infrastructure has the capability to meet operational requirements,
with its potential to develop and interface applications such as:
- Peak Load Management
- Outage Management
Peak Load Management
Peak Load Management (PLM) is a very important issue for utility companies and can
broadly be divided into two major categories: Demand Side Management (DSM):
DSM programmes encourage the end user to be more energy efficient. DSM measures
include lighting retrofits, building automation upgrades, re-commissioning, HVAC
improvements, variable frequency drives, etc.
This is a relatively long term initiative to decrease growth in power requirement,
which in turn will bring about a decrease in capacity addition.
Demand Response (DR)
Demand Response (DR) is a term used for programmes designed to encourage end-users
to make short-term reductions in energy demand in response to a price signal from
the electricity hourly market, or a trigger initiated by the electricity grid operator
during peak hours. Typically, DR actions would be in the range of 1 to 4 hours and
include turning off or dimming banks of lighting, adjusting HVAC levels or shutting
down a portion of a manufacturing process. Alternatively, onsite generation can
be used to displace load drawn from the electricity power grid.
The DR application takes inputs from load forecasting tools, SCADA and MDM as well
as scheduling tools to determine deficit and surplus status, and based on this status
information, it sends signals to the consumers using AMI and Mobile App. DR helps
Utility companies to reduce overall energy costs and investment required for adding
new capacity to serve peak loads.