Over the past 20 years, increased urbanisation, paired with the growing recognition of climate change, has resulted in the rise of the clean energy economy. The clean energy economy relies heavily on the on-going development of renewable energy, distributed energy resources, and long-term energy efficiency at the grid-edge. These clean energy plans often neglect the importance of leveraging a tool that has been part of the energy distribution grid since nearly its inception: the meter.

Historically, collecting meter usage data has been a manual task for most utilities. Automatic meter data collection was introduced in the mid-80s largely due to the emergence of AMR technology for water and energy metering devices. Today, smart meters can remotely collect consumption and diagnostic data and then transfer that data to a central database for billing, analysing, and troubleshooting. As smart meter capabilities expand, it’s important for utilities to understand how this technology can play a critical part in the clean energy economy. We will explore smart meters’ full breadth of capabilities and how they can promote energy efficiency at the grid’s edge.

The evolution of smart meters

As more large-scale smart meter programmes are rolled out, utilities are realizing that smart meters can provide extremely detailed information on leaks, service quality, violations, and even security alerts. When applied through advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) , this data can help power smart grid projects, smart homes, buildings, infrastructure, […]