What is smart metering?
The government’s smart metering prospectus1 tells us that the country’s energy agenda is urgent, and every home in Great Britain – as well as businesses and public sector users– should have smart gas and electricity meters. The information they deliver will help us all manage our energy use more responsibly, enabling us to save money and reduce our carbon emissions.
Smart meters underpin the strategy to deliver an affordable, secure and sustainable energy supply and are an important step towards a low–carbon economy, as well as smart grids
The energy industry will be able to offer better customer service and develop new tariffs and services. The programme will also encourage take–up of the government’s Green Deal initiative, aimed at improving energy efficiency in 26 million homes.2
The government’s prospectus also points out the need for standardisation throughout the programme, to minimise confusion for consumers, encourage competition, deliver consistency and ensure quality. It is of course imperative that smart metering is secure.3
SmartReach’s proposed solution connects consumers, businesses and the energy industry using smart meters. This solution will collect and deliver the information that ensures consumers, small businesses and the energy industry will derive real benefit from the additional information that will be available in a ‘smart world’. In this smart world, there will be up to 4000 times as much information as is currently available and SmartReach will focus on ensuring this becomes a real benefit to all stakeholders.
What are smart grids?
Ensuring the future of our electricity supply will involve even greater proactive management of the network, involving more Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as part of the supply and distribution grid. The name for such a system is a ‘smart grid’.
The more information produced by ICT, especially real-time, the greater the ability to manage supply and demand. Transport of electricity from power stations to homes and businesses will be more reliable and cost effective and will enable lower operating and maintenance costs. In the future, electricity will come from a variety of sources, including renewable energy and microgeneration. Supplying power smoothly to match demand will be a challenge. A smarter grid is vital to achieve this.
1 Smart Metering Implementation Programme, Chapter 1.1
2 Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Press Release: 2010/104, 21 September 2010
3 Smart Metering Implementation Programme, Chapter 2.21
Smart Metering video presentation
Get an introduction to the purpose and capabilities of the SmartReach consortium by watching a video presentation (click the play button to watch the video). Each of the three partners present what they bring to SmartReach by covering the background to the consortium, proposed communication solution, security considerations, end-to-end solution assurance and consumer engagement.
