Smart electricity to convey further competence

A robust strategy for Micro-Grid in India is needed, in terms of consumer and governmental support for investment and functional requirements of the network
Anil Daulani, CEO and MD-India, CyanConnode

In a discussion, Anil Daulani, CEO and MD-India, CyanConnode, talks about why is Smart electricity so important for India to gain more efficiency in power sector, moreover IoT platform requires investment and more development by the government bodies.

What kind of opportunities do you see in smart electricity for India?
The digital transformation in IoT and AI brings new opportunities for smart electricity. There is a tremendous opportunity to augment the electricity transmission and distribution sector for building the Smart Electricity ecosystem in India. A smart communications infrastructure is crucial for Smart Electricity that can effectively integrate supply and demand-side components connected to the electric grid. The smart communication infra connects Smart Meters, Distributed Energy Resources, Energy Management Systems, Distribution Transformers, Capacitor Banks to push the real-time data to the digital IoT platform. The application running on IoT platform would empower Transmission and Distribution companies to manage, real-time energy forecasting, monitor usages and act in case of any failure.

Our Smart Meter roll-out experiences in India-open-up the opportunity to create solutions around demand response, voltage and outage management, faster power restoration, and operational efficiency. The intended purpose of Smart Meters for customer services has not yet come up fully as the DISCOMs are currently using the Remote Meter Reads as the prime usage. There are many opportunities to enhance customer services, engagement, experiences and awareness. The last-mile communication network is the heart of delivering Smart Electricity to consumers, there is a huge amount of data being fed by Smart meters every 15 minutes interval from millions of endpoints. Analytics engine using AI capabilities – machine learning, cognitive analytics helps DISCOMs to bring down their T&D losses, automate workforce, modifying processes in customer interactions and help customers to take corrective action to conserve electricity. The capability to consider consumer’s every aspect and the data gathered via smart metering every 15 minutes is allowing Analytics Engine to develop predictive analysis on consumption habits by managing campaigns, detect frauds, billing expectations, predicting electricity demand and smart electricity distribution.

Electricity is a commodity that is being fed by DISCOMs to their consumers at subsidised rates, keeping a terrible log of debts from Generation companies. We presume smart electricity can be brought in when users can understand how electricity is being generated and reach to them after passing through several networks from the remotely located generation plant to end consumer. Let’s bring transparency between consumers and generators to choose the way consumers want to buy electricity, the electricity market should be distributed and allow generator, retailers to publish their prices online so that consumers can choose their choice of a retailer or generator who offers them unsurpassed service, reliable and un-nterruptible supply.

The market is already in shape as there is a growing inclination for more participation and control over electricity purchasing and use, there is a need to interact with DISCOMs in different ways like mobile apps, social media. We can see ample opportunities to work on connecting consumers on a mobile
app to buy the electricity in advance (prepaid Smart Meters) based on consumer behaviour. Smart Electricity is the choice of consumer to empower companies like us to work on a new application and integrate more devices on smart communication infrastructure. Electricity users should embrace new behaviors around awareness and modifying their usage in order to harness Smart Electricity’s full potential.

Can you brief about the latest innovations and additions for your range of solutions?
There is a lot of space for IoT companies like us to bring innovations to our solution offerings. As India has our prime focus, we have been working to localise our Omnimesh platform to meet Indian power distribution challenges. Our Innovation Lab is working towards this goal by cohesive working between India and UK engineers. The few upcoming application areas are worth mentioning as Intelligent Charging infrastructure of Electric cars, transformer monitoring, and distribution automation. We are working to enhance our product portfolio to meet the emerging demand for IoT applications in the Indian electricity market. In the era of digitisation, field equipment and analytical solutions are put together into an integrated system for data collection, data analysis, to help electric utility expansion and performance improvement.

The way electric vehicles are plugged into electric grid makes the system highly unstable due to the selection of charging e-vehicle batteries during peak load period, which brings opportunities to design a remotely communicable charging station using IoT platforms and operates charging stations remotely with the help of an IoT platform. Our 6LoWPAN RF Mesh solution is best suited for such application as the RF canopy is already laid down by us for Smart Metering roll out across various cities like Indore, Ahmedabad where such an application can be explored, there is ample opportunity to integrate more devices on the same infrastructure.

Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence adda range of applications developed from Smart Meter data. The data collected from smart meters can be utilised in innovative ways of offering,for enhanced customer service and providing completely new services like energy efficiency recommendation. Using Smart Meters, customers can monitor home energy usage and take action to control the usages. Predictive analytics enabled by AI can help DISCOMs to improve operational efficiency in fixed assets, grid operations and improving the overall performance of the utility. The possibilities for innovation using IoT and AI technologies throughout utility are limitless once DISCOMs, IoT Companies, Metering Company and System Integrator collaborate effectively and beyond traditional boundaries.

What are your plans and projections for next two years?
India is an emerging market with a dynamic wave of Smart Metering projects being kicked off by Utilities. Several major Utilities are gearing up with upcoming RFPs to roll out the Smart Metering project. India market is following the footsteps of the leading markets for Smart Meter roll-out strategy. In-line with this, new use cases and functionality are being added into the requirement matrix.

The Indian government has mandated the use of smart prepaid electricity meters in the country from next year, it would be a complete transition over the next three years. Hon’ble Power minister has said several times including in parliament for smart prepaid metering as a way of making state DISCOMs further efficient and cut down their T&D losses.

We have aligned our Engineering and Production teams to support the upcoming Smart Metering projects for India market. As our technology has well proved through our projects that communication is the real backbone and reliable, robust communication infrastructure can change the outcome in a rapid manner, we are fully geared up to play a reliable role in Indian smart metering market in years to come.