Problem:

As part of the government of India’s Smart Meter National Program, 25Cr existing conventional energy/electricity meters will be replaced with smart meters. In this context, there are concerns with regard to re-usability or safe disposal of the replaced meters. At the same time, due to the scale of the replacement, there is an expected environmental concern around their disposal proposition.

Challenge:

Demonstrate with a viable business case innovative option(s) that can identify possibility(ies) of practical and realistic re-utilisation of conventional meter.

Simultaneously, showcase innovative thinking in finding option(s) for economically viable means of disposal of conventional meters with environmentally-responsible disposal methods with real-life/practical application.

Video Resource: https://youtu.be/40dzIiiyxAI

Design a Hybrid Communication Module for, where minimum two communication technologies can co-exist (EX: - cellular and RF), ensuring continuous communication between the meter and the back-end system between two communicating devices, whenever one of the technologies faces a problem, the other system will automatically step up and start communicating with the back-end system.

PLCC, Cellular GPRS, LORA, NB-IoT and RF Mesh are the various communication technology options available for smart metering purpose in India. It is essential to adapt a communication system which suits to local characteristics: residential area density, infrastructural builds, and geographical terrain to construct a fit to purpose communication network. 

The choice of communication technology will impact the smart meters deployment strategy, system performance and supported use cases, solution longevity, reliability, security, interoperability, and scalability. 

No one technology can guarantee 100% connectivity and the experience has proven that amalgamation of different technologies.

Video Resource: https://youtu.be/JFGYGqnyfTM

Design a solution model that will act as an intermediate intelligent layer on the meter before communication which will analyze meter event data at device level itself and based on its relevance will decide to push the information to the upstream system along with other datasets for carrying out real-time analysis to take immediate action.

Smart meters can record real-time data and communicate with the HES, MDM system on the backhand. Whenever there are any events happening in the meter, the meters send synchronously alarm to the backend system (HES/MDM). 

• Sometimes it sends non-significant event data to the backend system which increases the backend system data storage, burdening the communication network and increasing compute requirement.
• In the present smart meters when alarm events are pushed it does not contain the other associate information (like system condition voltage, current, kw, kva etc) to the upstream system therefore it is limiting the ability to take actions immediately.

Video Resource: https://youtu.be/uNNQi7hjqfo

Since every CCMS vendor have their own APIs, interchanging of CCMS of one make by

another is not possible. Also, Integration of individual dash boards is not possible as of now

for the same reason.

It is required to innovate some standardised, cost effective, indigenous solution to achieve

plug and play interchangeability/ integration among CCMS independent of any make.

Video Resource: https://youtu.be/D6wC3pOv-Ek