With the
implementation of RGGVY scheme, the requirement of single phase meters has become
more and more. The financially crunched utilities are struggling hard to buy
good quality meters with
communication facility , as returns from
these meters are meager ,but at the same time they have to come up with the
technology for electrical meters underway
in many other
countries. Here an attempt is
made to go through various phases of this sector over the past few decades and
years to come.
From the century old rotating wheel or
Ferraris meter or electro mechanical
meter, Utilities in
India are following the trend in utilities in other parts of the world.
With the advent of electronics and IT, the technology behind electrical meters
underway tremendously but there is still many unanswered questions surrounding
the best implementation system.
The statistics about
metering in India
is quite astonishing. One of our neighboring states has about 5 million
mechanical meters still in service.30 per cent of the meters in India are still
with counter type display system on which any tampering can be done. Many
utililities have just only stopped purchasing electro-mechanical meters. Now
the utilities are considering LCD meters as the most sophisticated one’s as
many readings can be obtained at the same time. With this background an effort
is made to analyze the latest status of metering in India .Since India lives in
villages and electrification of villages have not landed up anywhere, only
single phase metering are discussed.
From electro mechanical meters the first development was static meters
with ADE 7751 chips., being the first tolerant electronic meters by Analog Devices,
monitoring both phase and neutral current and billing is based on the larger reading.
Indian market also attracted towards it, by utilities changing their specifications
to incorporate such features into tender documents. It also became a way for
utilities to improve efficiency and for meter manufacturers to differentiate
their designs.
The next development was
ADE 7761 meter in which brought new concept of attending neutral missing.
During these days the meters were neither electromechanical nor electronic but ‘hyrid’
in nature having the draw back of both.
By this time, Indian
Power sector has adopted a new concept of AT&C losses leaving behind the
age old concept of T&D losses.Low metering efficiency, tampering etc. were
the main loss for the utilities. Through out the development of electronic
energy meter, India
has stood out as a feature rich, cost driven market where producing a meter
that meets the advanced specifications the lowest cost is essential for the
success.
Metering today
The need for rich specification
meters at very low cost has driven the single-phase metering market to widely
adopt the system-on-chip (SoC) solution, which has rapidly become more popular
than a two-chip solution . SoC
technology combines the metering metrology with a low cost microcontroller and
peripherals into a single package, thus reducing the overall cost of the meter.
The SoC has met mixed success in various regions of the world.
A full range of measurement of active,
reactive and apparent energy measurement is required to be done to prevent the
various malpractices adopted by the consumers. This may be added up with a LCD
driver also as a precaution. The presence of external battery input and related
circuits ensures the system function in the absence of voltages also. Thus the
simplified design along with ability to note down reading even in the absence
of power has made the system acceptable to all utilities. Many meter
manufacturers have come up with design suitable to above solutions.
The
future
The automated meter reading (AMR) network have provided sufficient
incentives for many utilities to commence wide
- scale deployments of such
technology. KSEB is yet to commence AMR. Apart from metering cost, removal of
existing meter, replace with AMR etc will be saved by the savings in man power
required to manually read the meter. But due to the comparatively less labour
rate in India, it’s possible when many utilities abroad done with high labour cost.
A two way communication would also help to facilitate whether a particular
consumer has to be disconnected or not. A lot of man power can be effectively
utilized by adopting to AMR. When communication is incorporated, memory requirements
also comes to play. This may be arrived in consultation with utility as it may
vary from place to place. Thus before Indian utilities a number of options are
available as far as single phase energy meter is concerned.
The reality
The RGGVY scheme
has revealed astonishing figures in certain states like Arunachal
Pradesh, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Orissa etc. where majority of the house holds
are still not electricfied. This shows the future of single phase energy meter is quite reasonable
in India. But it remains to be seen that how many financially crunched states and utilities
would change to such high end meters at the expense of few thousands and that would fetch only a couple of hundreds as revenue and this I
apprehend may lead to again hybrid
meters and Ferrari meters to trust worthy consumers which will continue to play a key role at least for a
decade in Indian power sector.
