Advanced Metering Architecture: A Pioneer in the Smart Grid Industry

According to IEK's view, under the continuous fermentation of international energy and climate issues, various countries have vigorously promoted the construction of smart grids, hoping to promote optimal allocation and operation of power resources through real-time control and demand-side management, and achieve the goal of energy conservation and carbon reduction. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to rely on power information gathering and analysis. Therefore, Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) with two-way communication function can make the automation and information of the power system penetrate into the family/building, and it is considered as intelligence. The backbone of the grid.

Under the guidance of the policy, the international AMI market has sprouted from Europe, the United States and other regions, and has begun to spread around the world. Currently it includes Japan, South Korea, China, Australia, and New Zealand, all of which have related infrastructure or pilot projects in progress. .

There are a large number of meter markets. If the smart meters are fully replaced, the market size will be considerable. The number of smart meter installations has begun to grow at a double-digit rate since 2009. Market research organization ABI estimates that 76 million smart meters will be installed in 2009, and it is expected to reach 212 million in 2015. In the next five years, Europe and North America are still the main market, and Asia, led by China, is the region with the greatest growth potential.

Introduction to AMI System Architecture AMI refers to a system that uses various communication methods to transmit client meter data back to the control center, and achieves various functions such as reading, providing, setting, and controlling remote data through two-way communication. In addition to improving the disadvantages of uneconomical, inaccurate, and non-real-time features of traditional manual meter reading, AMIs still possess many functions. For example, they support various tariff rates, provide users with energy usage information and guide spontaneous energy conservation, and support the transmission of signals to users. Load control, automatic response to changes in electricity prices, support for fault detection and remote on/off management, improved load forecasting, and user power quality management.

(1) AMI brings many benefits to the country, electric power industry and users Compared with traditional mechanical electric meters, AMI has the advantage of having two-way communication function, so AMI can connect multiple parties such as electricity, power generation and even electricity storage systems to each other. The auxiliary power grid is oriented towards the development of the freeway of the electric power system and achieves the function of going on and off. Therefore, the main advantage of AMI lies in the realization of energy-saving and carbon reduction goals, improvement of power supply quality, and improvement of economic efficiency. Therefore, the country, the electric power industry, and power consumers can each provide various benefits, as shown in Figure 1.

At the national level, AMI can facilitate the management of demand side and the integration of renewable energy sources, thus helping the country achieve its energy saving and carbon reduction policy goals. For the electric industry, AMI can provide load control and communication functions to quickly measure and diagnose power quality to achieve self-healing of the power grid and improve the quality of power supply. This can be achieved through the cooperation of the time electricity price mechanism. The smoothness of the peak off the peak will slow the pressure on the newly-built power plant. At the same time, it will be easier to obtain the user's electricity consumption data, so it can provide more innovative services. Finally, at the user level, the AMI can be used to display information transparently. The power users can learn more information and perform energy management. The user's flexible interaction with the power system can be enhanced. The power user can also act as a generator and power consumer at the same time. The role of Prosumer = Producer + consumer helps to improve the operation of the electricity market.