Advanced metering infrastructure, enabling a secure way for the DISCOM

Smart metering would energise consumers with tools to conserve energy and plan their electricity usage in an optimum manner

Anil Daulani, CEO and MD-India, CyanConnode, in a discussion with Athira Bejoy, thoroughly discusses how the future of a smart distribution network is placed firmly between generation and end consumers for a reliable and sustainable power supply for all.

Time to think about the supply-side
Over last several years, the electricity distribution sector is an overlooked omponent of our electricity network with high revenue losses due to pilferage, theft, inaccurate measurement and inefficient billing, leading to high commercial leakgaes. At the same time, technical losses are major area of concern due to need for system stability/ stregthening involving DTs, substations and conductors, phase wise imbalancing of power networks for underload/overload conditions. India has adequate generation capacity with the introduction of renewables sources, however the supply-side is not equipped to accommodate the additional load. DISCOMs have been defaulting payments to generators due to their poor financial conditions and there is now a need to review the distribution sector in a new holistic manner.

Most of the DISCOMs are operating on 15-20 per cent of AT&C losses with an outstanding amount of ` 78,523 Crores in August 2019. There is good governance for generation in India, and now it is time to think about the supply-side. Looking into the supply-side challenges, it’s the first time, CEA, under the guidance of the Ministry of Power, is working on the distribution plan to supply 24/7 uninterrupted power for all consumers. This plan covers 100 per cent metering of all consumers and has projected a 40 per cent increase in power distribution infrastructure till 2022. The plan also foresees the conversion of all electricity consumer meters to smart prepaid meters within the next three years.

UDAY 2.0 to impose major tariff changes
UDAY 2.0 would empower end consumers and transform DISCOMs to supply uninterruptible electricity and manage the difference between the average cost of supply (ACS) and average revenue realised (ARR). Major tariff changes are expected; impose fine on DISCOM for load shedding without prior notice, introduce prepaid electricity, choice to buy electricity from any supplier/retailer, whosoever offer better services to end consumers, incentivise consumer to participate in demand side management program, introduce time of use tariff for domestic consumers to encourage them to run their non-priority loads during off-peak period, impose penalty on payment defaulters and theft cases, transfer subsidy to any category of consumer through direct benefit transfer. Most importantly, DISCOMs would not be allowed to pass on their revenue losses due to their operation on consumers. Smart meters in prepaid mode, with reliable communication infrastructure will provide vast support and empowerment for DISCOM operations.

Robust approach to protect against protocol cyber attack
Smart meters are appealing targets for malevolent hackers who fiddle with a meter to immediately manipulate energy costs or fabricate energy meter readings. There is also the possibility of mass cyber attacks on smart meters as they are becoming IP devices and getting exposed to external world and so could be prone to cyber attacks. To avoid such incidences, device-level security together with traditional IT security is vital to build a robust system. To protect the DISCOM network at the device level, a security agent-based framework is required now. The security agents should be placed both in field devices (smart meters) and substation level (RTUs). The key functions of security agents are to be collecting network traffic models and traffic data exploring, maintaining data log and reporting, runing security fixes and intrusion detection algorithms, maintain end-to-end security, and alarm management.

DISCOMs need to have robust approach to protect against protocol cyber attack. There are various methods and protocols to implement Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in a secure way for the DISCOMs; implementation of DNP3 Protocol, DLMS Protocol, AES Encryption methodology, and public key infrastructure ensures each device a unique certificate guarantee, certificate management to manage the certificate for each smart meter, DTLS session and cipher suite etc. There is a need to get the attention of our cyber security cell to audit the AMI systems for the security like GCHQ has conducted in the United Kingdom.

Smart meters re-energise India’s crumbling power distribution companies
Smart meters have become the biggest advantage for Indian DISCOMs to adopt and bring transformational improvements across operations, consumer services, employee accountability and more. Smart prepaid meters are the right choice for power distribution companies. Smart meters can be used in both postpaid/prepaid mode, read real-time energy consumption information containing the values of voltage,phase angle, and frequency and securely communicating the data. The capability of smart meters for bidirectional communication of data allows DISCOMs to collect information regarding the electricity, feed back to the power grid from the customer premises.

DISCOMs can pinpoint the leakages, theft, and payment defaulters to enable timely billing, revenue collection, and accurate measurement. DISCOMs can run the analytical tool to identify tampers, monitor the performance and energy usage characteristics of the load on the grid. MPWZ Indore DISCOMs 1 lac smart meter implementation in Indore city has become a great success story for India to follow and imbibe as a countrywide approach to improve DISCOM’s health in next 2-3 years time frame. The data analytics support new ways to control theft, which is beyond meter tampers and making DISCOM engineers to counter the attempts with effective and informed success rate of identifying thefts on a daily basis.

Intelligent monitoring allows for early and localised detection of problems so that individual events can be isolated, and mitigated measures can be launched to minimise the impact on the rest of the system. The current system of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), which was developed decades ago, has done a fairly good job of monitoring and response. But it has its boundaries, for example, it does not sense or monitor end-to-end devices plugged into the grid. Due to this, the process of coordination among DISCOMs in the event of an emergency is extremely sluggish. Smart metering would also energise consumers with tools to help them conserve energy and plan their electricity usage in an efficient and optimum manner.

The ideal metering infrastructure
Remotely communicable smart meters, with inbuilt wireless neighbourhood area network (NAN) module, certainly help DISCOMs to improve their supply efficiently. The wireless NAN module communicates with nearby routers/gateways and further network routers/gateways communicate over a cellular/fiber optic network with a data center to complete the AMI ecosystem. Optionally, provision can be made for cellular solutions for point-to-point communications with individual meters as well in case of sparsely populated rural areas. Wireless unlicensed RF communication and cellular technologies are an important part of true hybrid solution for smart metering deployments in India.

Irrespective of the communication technology deployed, the smart metering communications infrastructure must meet underlying requirements, high reliability and long lifecycle, low maintenance, interoperability, cost-effectiveness, security, low power consumption, and low installation costs.

Real-time information flow is one of the vital elements of a smart metering system. It allows efficient processing of data between consumers and control centers in order to increase the DISCOM network reliability, avoid power outages and improve the management of electricity consumption.

Quality of service (QoS) is important for communication inside the smart meter for performance degradation as delay or outage can compromise network stability. Smart metering should deploy mechanisms that ensure a good quality of service and that satisfy communication requirements by considering QoS sensitive routing protocols.

Anil Daulani,CEO and MD-India, CyanConnode