Empowering Energy Transformation with Smart Meter App Ecosystems

Abstract

Utilities are constantly looking for new ways to manage Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and improve efficiency. Software-defined meters and energy infrastructure provide a promising solution, with apps and microservices playing a key role. This guide explains software-defined meters, their benefits, and how apps and microservices can help utilities manage demand-response and DER.

Navigating the Opportunities and Challenges of Energy Transition and Grid Transformation

Utilities face numerous challenges in the shift to cleaner energy and modernized grids. Traditional grids, built for one-way power flows, now struggle to handle distributed energy resources like solar panels and batteries, making stability harder to maintain. The surge in real-time data from digitalized grids requires quick, accurate decisions, and outdated equipment adds complexity to integrating new components.

As utilities modernize, they face a changing landscape and work to shape the future of energy. Key industry trends highlight this evolution:

S&P Global forecasts a potential tripling of electricity demand by 2050, prompting infrastructure expansion preparations.
Modernization efforts prioritize decarbonizing the grid and leveraging distributed energy resources and virtual power plants to enhance reliability.
Extreme weather conditions drive the industry towards less water-intensive production methods.
Rising capital expenditures necessitate innovative funding solutions to maintain affordable customer bills.
Generative AI emerges as a transformative technology addressing core industry challenges like reliability, affordability, efficiency, sustainability, and safety.

The shift in the utility business model is creating a more connected energy ecosystem, bringing providers and customers together in their goals for sustainability and efficiency—a change noted by industry experts like Gartner.

“The energy provisioning business is now a collaborative, inclusive business with multiple actors outside utilities whose actions must be coordinated and orchestrated, to achieve the ultimate goal of providing society with energy that is affordable, available and acceptable. Gartner describes this model as ecosystem-centered or eco-centric.”

These trends manifest globally, particularly in regions with significant consumer-owned DER penetration, efficient demand-response programs, and software-defined assets facilitating a smarter, more flexible energy system.

1 • One example

of this trend is the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration project, showcasing a transactive system’s potential to coordinate distributed resources and demand-responsive components, yielding an 8% reduction in regional peak load with 30% demand response penetration.

2 • The second example

is a recently announced project by U.S. utility PG&E in partnership with Tesla. This project aims to aggregate the storage in PG&E customers’ Tesla Powerwalls to provide emergency power when heat drives up demand during summer.

3 • The third example

is the collaboration between Cornwall Insight and Smart Energy GB, which explored the benefits of household flexibility enabled by smart meters, revealing that embracing flexibility could lead to £14.1bn in savings by 2040, avoiding the need for four new gas-fired power stations by 2030 and reducing peak demand by 3GW, ultimately benefitting consumers, the environment, and the energy system.

Enabling the Clean Energy Transition with Next-Gen AMI 2.0 Advanced Metering Infrastructure

The initial deployment of AMI meters, known as “AMI 1.0,” took place between 2000 and 2010, representing the first wave of implementation. However, as these meters approach their anticipated 20-year lifespan, failure rates are increasing, necessitating replacement.

Enter “AMI 2.0,” the next generation of AMI meters integrated within a robust technology framework.

These state-of-the-art devices boast advanced edge-computing capabilities, providing real-time insights into electricity usage and generation. The intelligence embedded within AMI 2.0 offers a multitude of benefits for both consumers and utilities, promising improved efficiency, reliability, and optimization of energy management processes.

“In the US alone, an estimated 65 million smart meters will need to be replaced by the end of 2027. This dovetails with ambitious energy efficiency and electrification goals codified by the Inflation Reduction Act. Now is the time for utility decision-makers to make smart meter decisions that will have a real impact on their programs for addressing climate change.” Michael Kelly, Senior Research Analyst & Managing Consultant at Guidehouse

Leading provider of integrated energy management solutions for utilities Landis+Gyr highlights several key features that distinguish AMI 2.0, including:

Enhanced edge computing capabilities with access to high-resolution waveform data
Support for microgrid integration and intelligent automation
Enhanced consumer awareness of energy consumption
Availability of load disaggregation for consumers
Advanced anomaly detection functionalities
Implementation of state-of-the-art cybersecurity technologies

“As utilities across the [United States] evaluate next-generation smart meter capabilities, it is imperative they understand the potential of advanced inside-the-meter intelligence and how it can support energy efficiency and demand response priorities. Sophisticated next-generation smart meters…have the potential to transform the utility-consumer paradigm by providing new capabilities around device recognition, proactive notifications, and a real-time experience, all of which will enable everyday consumers to have more insight and control into their home energy use.”Mike Phillips, CEO of Sense

As energy goes digital, smart metering is evolving to support distributed energy resources and demand response, promoting a more sustainable and resilient energy system. The growing connection of appliances, sensors, and smart devices highlights the need for new operational practices bringing finer granularity to flexibility management. Traditional grid management methods must adapt to fully leverage the energy transition, paving the way for opportunities with a software-defined approach.

Unlocking the Potential of Software-Defined Meters to Accelerate the Energy Transition

In a software-defined approach, the intelligence traditionally embedded in hardware shifts to software, enabling IoT devices like smart meters to be networked, configured, and updated seamlessly. This interoperability, facilitated by reusable, portable code, grants unprecedented flexibility to the system.

A software-defined meter goes beyond traditional energy measurement, equipped with advanced software capabilities, that drive innovation with a flexible design approach.

“If you want to innovate faster, you need the blend of reusable competencies, building blocks, frameworks, and services for both software and hardware. And just like a Lego set, the power comes not only from taking time, cost, and risk out of the development process but also the increased interoperability and standardization.” Paul Clarke, an independent technology advisor to companies and governments.

Software-defined systems effectively decouple the lifecycle of hardware from functionality, enabling several advantages:

Extensions, upgrades, and evolutions become on-the-fly software updates, largely decoupled from hardware changes.
The system’s longevity is no longer dependent on the availability of specific hardware or the active support of specific operating systems.
No major revamps are necessary, making systems more evergreen and facilitating a shift from CapEx to OpEx.
This approach fosters multi-vendor collaboration from technical and business perspectives to achieve better energy management and efficiency.

How Can Software-Defined Meters Enable Demand-Response and Managed DER?

Through their adaptable and customizable software architecture, Software-Defined Meters enable the establishment of secure app ecosystems, fostering collaboration among behind-the-meter assets, smart home environments, and utility requirements for precise insights and real-time data.

Figure 1 – Micro-services and Apps for Smarter Grids. Source: MicroEJ

Apps and microservices facilitate a growing array of grid and customer applications delivering inside-the-meter intelligence to utilities and their customers. These applications span both behind and in front of the meter, each contributing distinct benefits:

Behind the Meter

Enhanced customer engagement: Smart meters provide energy usage insights and bill information, fostering greater interaction between utilities and customers.

Advanced capabilities: Next-generation smart meters, driven by AI algorithms, offer features like device recognition, real-time usage tracking, and proactive notifications, enabling more sophisticated energy management.

Load disaggregation: High-resolution energy monitoring and machine learning algorithms, provided by companies like Sense, offer detailed real-time insights into device usage. This promotes higher customer engagement and facilitates benefits such as energy efficiency, demand response, and integration of electrified loads like EVs.

Utility-side benefits: Real-time engagement with customers supports energy efficiency resource procurement, enhances demand flexibility, and facilitates the integration of new loads onto the grid, thereby improving utility-side operations.

Front of the Meter

Enhanced grid management: High-resolution waveform data streams and edge-based computing support asset- and network-oriented use cases, allowing grid operators to efficiently manage and optimize grid operations.

Improved visibility and connectivity: AI-based connectivity modeling algorithms provide near-real-time visibility of network connectivity across meters, transformers, and feeders. This aids grid operators in outage pinpointing, load geolocation, distributed energy resource integration, and power anomaly detection.

Enhanced fault detection and outage management: Localized analytics algorithms analyze waveform data captured by smart meters to identify power quality characteristics. This aids in fault detection and outage management, allowing for quicker response times and improved grid reliability.

Sub-second delivery of high-resolution waveform data: Next-generation devices like Landis+Gyr Revelo powered by MicroEJ provide sub-second delivery of high-resolution waveform data streams. This enhances accuracy and insights for grid operators at the edge, enabling more efficient grid management and optimization.

Practical examples of smart meter apps illustrate their role in ecosystem-centric energy management opportunities:

Grid operation

High impedance detection
Theft detection
Phase identification (at residential customers)
Phase monitoring
Residential neutral fault detection
Location: locate the meters on the grid by detecting patterns between meter and transformer
Load monitoring: report load for each transformer

New distributed energy resources

Managing distributed energy resources (DERs)
EV awareness: report EV activity and power
Solar awareness: report solar activity and power
Cloud AI defines what to do to balance the grid

Customer incentives

Load disaggregation (identify load at home)

Figure 2 – Examples of Smart Meter Apps to Increase Sustainability and Energy Savings. Source: MicroEJ

Software-defined meters and their accompanying apps are crucial for achieving efficient grid management, optimizing energy usage, and promoting sustainable practices. They are the cornerstone of an efficient software-defined energy infrastructure, enabling collaboration among diverse stakeholders through grid edge intelligence.

“Smart Metering, combined with direct customer feed-back has been shown to increase energy efficiency by 5-15%, and in some cases even up to 20%”. European Smart Metering Industry Group (ESMIG)

Inside the Meter Grid Intelligence to Become the Norm

Graph 3 – Software-Defined Smart Meters App Ecosystems Enable True Edge Intelligence.

Just as smartphones revolutionized personal tech, smart meters are now transforming energy management with inside-the-meter analytics. With platforms like VEE Energy, utilities can bring smartphone-style functionality to low-power devices, allowing meter manufacturers to easily update meters and roll out new services on software-defined meters. This shift marks the next phase in smart metering, with companies like Landis+Gyr and Itron leading the way in deploying these advanced devices as their core products. Given the minimal cost differential and extensive benefits, these smart meters are set to become the standard in new installations and upgrades.

Driven by global decarbonization targets, Guidehouse Insights projects Distributed Energy Resources (DER) capacity will exceed 3.2 TWh by 2030, reflecting a rising demand for smarter, more sustainable grid infrastructure. VEE Energy answers this call by enabling seamless integration of DERs into the grid, making it easier for utilities to manage these resources through software-defined meters. The result is a shared app ecosystem where consumers and utilities collaborate to enhance efficiency and sustainability. This shift represents more than an upgrade—it signals a connected, sustainable future in energy management where communities are empowered and energy resources are maximized.

Guidehouse Insights projects global Distributed Energy Resources (DER) capacity to exceed 3.2TWh by 2030, driven by the escalating pursuit of decarbonization and the emergence of new business models, alongside stringent climate policies by governments worldwide. Advancing technology and the growth of SaaS AI-powered DER solutions give utilities more options to easily integrate DERs into grid networks.

Software-defined meters and energy infrastructure are central to this transformation. By creating a shared app ecosystem, they enable smooth collaboration between consumers and utilities, boosting energy efficiency and advancing sustainability goals. This integration represents more than a tech upgrade; it’s a shift toward a connected, sustainable energy future. Harnessing their potential leads us toward efficient, eco-friendly, and community-centered energy management.

VEE Energy Solution For Smart Meter App Ecosystems

Ready to explore how VEE Energy can transform your grid management with intelligent, software-defined solutions? Download our solution brief to discover the full potential of edge intelligence for smarter, more resilient grids.

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Interested in exploring how VEE Energy can elevate your next energy project? Contact Robert DiLoreto at MicroEJ to discuss tailored solutions for your grid intelligence needs.

Additional Resources

Industry

Accelerate Energy Transition With Software Defined Smart Meters and Smart Grid

VIDEO

Robert DiLoreto introduces the Revelo Meter by Landis+Gyr at CES 2023

BLOG

How Smart Meter Design Flexibility Improves and Optimizes DER Management