Smart meters can offer a number of immediate benefits to consumers and could pave the way for far-reaching changes to New Zealand's retail electricity sector. The New Zealand Government is considering how New Zealand can take best advantage of this new technology.
Smart meters form part of what are commonly known as smart grids and the International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) has launched a web portal pulling together a comprehensive catalogue of IEC Standards on smart grids.
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IEC Smart Grid portal [80 kB JPG].
IEC international Standards for smart grid
Working with leading experts, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has developed a dedicated and unique web portal that provides one-click access to what constitutes the basis for building safe and efficient smart grid projects. In addition to information about Smart Grids, regional differences and the purpose of Smart Grid Standards, it also offers a comprehensive catalogue of interoperability Standards, technical design and specification publications, and performance Standards.
This resource is the latest addition to the IEC's set of special web page zones. It allows utilities and distribution/transmission operators to document their requirements and enables system engineers to integrate new devices from a wide array of different providers worldwide with huge legacy systems, while ensuring that future upgrades remain possible.
Visit the IEC Smart Grid portal online.(www.iec.ch/zone/smartgrid)
Standards, the blueprint for smart grid projects
The IEC Smart Grid portal provides Standards that make up building blocks on two different fronts. On the one hand, these Standards address requirements. This allows utilities and distribution and transmission operators to document their needs. On the other hand, Standards that apply to technical design and specification allow system architects and integrators to implement devices that not only speak the same language but also behave synergistically and perhaps interchangeably.
Utilities need to determine their needs
Before working on solutions, utilities need to work out how, why and where intelligence needs to be added to the network. To be successful, current practice, processing and use of information need to be analysed and discussed.
Requirements can be considered as building blocks because they alleviate the task for utilities to reinvent the wheel. Eighty per cent of the time, relatively generic requirements – such as those for smart meters – can be adapted. This not only avoids duplication but also creates large enough markets for manufacturers to provide more economic solutions for the user, while still allowing for competition.
Via the IEC Smart Grid portal, utilities, regulators and distribution and transmission system operators are able to access standardised processes that allow them to pinpoint their requirements.
The precondition for seamless interoperability
Systems engineering may be a mature industrial area, but its level of complexity is staggering. For one, the electrical system must remain in operation at all times. The technical challenge is much more than the simple addition of a computer infrastructure to an electrotechnical infrastructure.
New parts from different suppliers must work with existing legacy systems, and the possibility for upgrades in the future must remain open. Interoperability Standards allow utilities to buy pieces of equipment from any vendor knowing that they will not only work in the same way but truly interact.
A one-stop shop systems approach
Developments in many different technology areas, including communications, computing, and sensing, require a system approach so that the entire 'chain' provides the expected services. Both the electrical and intelligence aspects of power provision need to be dealt with at the same time.
The IEC Smart Grid portal provides direct access to the many key Standards and processes that apply to a Smart Grid: from electrical energy measurement, tariff and load control to lamps, renewable energies and fuel cell technologies. The IEC Smart Grid provides a one-stop shop for the many smart grid projects that are being launched around the world.
Reproduced from an article by Paul Gay in IEC e-tech, September 2009.
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