Guide to smart metering of electricity in Russia (for power engineers and consumers)

The smart accounting guide covers all the most important components of this process - legal, technical, organizational and economic.







I work for a regional energy company, in my free time I am interested in the history of the electric power industry and the theory of energy markets.



You may have heard that a transition to smart metering of electricity is beginning in Russia . We are all consumers of electricity - at home or at work, and the meter is an important element of our energy consumption (its readings, multiplied by the tariff, are our charge, what we have to pay). I hope my Guide to Smart Accounting helps you understand what it is, how it works, and when it will happen in your home, office, or business.

1. What is smart metering?

First, let's define the concepts. There is an ordinary meter ( hereinafter we will talk about electricity meters , since the legislation provides for the massive introduction so far only of smart metering of electricity, and for other resources - water, heat, gas - there is no certainty yet). Regular counter:

• considers only energy as a cumulative total (there are also multi-tariff ones that consider a cumulative total for two or three zones of the day - day, night, half-peak);
• it is necessary to write off the readings from its display once a month and transfer it to the supplier (or the power companies send controllers to write off the readings);
• does not allow regulating energy consumption (for example, turning off a defaulter).

With the spread and cheapening of microprocessors in the 90s - 2000s, it became possible to integrate electronics into the meter. The easiest way is to build it into an electricity meter - after all, it has a constant power supply from the network and a rather large case. This is how “smart meters” and metering systems appeared - ASKUE, AISKUE (these abbreviations mean an automated commercial energy metering system). Key features of AISKUE:

• such a meter takes into account not only energy, but also power, active and reactive , while it can do this in an hourly section and for each phase , which already gives the first trickle of BIG DATA in the power industry;
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In Russia, the AIIS KUE system (rather complicated and expensive) must be owned by those who buy and sell electricity on the wholesale electricity and capacity market (this market in a limited volume began work in 2005, the moment when the electricity reform began, and now there the vast majority of the energy produced is bought and sold). In addition, consumers in the retail electricity market with a capacity of over 670 kW are required to provide hourly metering (that is, in one form or another AISKUE) along the circuit of their consumption. These are hundreds of consumers in every region.



But for more than 90% of all electricity consumers, including households and small businesses, until recently, the main tariff was a one-rate tariff or a tariff by zones of the day (day-night), and the meter was ordinary, not “smart”.



Separate grid, energy sales and management companies implemented programs for equipping consumers with smart metering, but all this constituted a small percentage of all consumers.



But recently the concept of "intelligent metering device" and "intelligent metering system" appeared in the legislation . How does this differ from a "smart meter" and ASKUE? The fact that "intelligent" is now called such a device or metering system that meets a set of legally defined technical requirements, “the minimum functionality of intelligent energy (power) metering systems” .



If the meter or the system does not correspond to them, but allows you to automatically collect and transmit data to the server - we still call such a meter “smart”, and the accounting system - AISKUE.



Let's see what are these regulatory requirements, the implementation of which makes the meter (accounting system) intelligent?

2. What regulations of the Russian Federation determine the rules and requirements for intellectual accounting?

Until now, the consumer has borne the cost of purchasing an electricity meter. This did not suit many, because

“The buyer does not go to the market with his own scales, the seller must have the scales”? ..

But the legislator at the beginning of the reform of the electric power industry decided that the tariff would be cleared from the costs of accounting, that the installation of a meter is a separate paid service, and the consumer, paying for the meter with the installation, has the right to choose: either install the cheapest single-rate meter, or a more expensive meter that allows count by zones of the day or even by hours, and choose one of 3 types of tariffs in the tariff menu (population) or up to 4-6 price categories (legal entity).



FZ (Federal Law) No. 522 "On smart metering ..." amended Federal Law No. 35 , which defines the basic requirements in the electric power industry in terms of accounting.



In fact, these are 3 key changes:



(1) Starting from July 1, 2020, the responsibility for metering is transferred from the consumer to:

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In other words, the consumer will now bear the costs of the meter not directly and at a time, at the time of installation of the device, but indirectly - they will be included in the tariff of guaranteeing suppliers and network companies (read below how this will affect the tariff).



(2) From January 1, 2022, all installed metering devices must be intelligent (that is, comply with the "minimum functionality" defined by Government Decree No. 890 ), and the consumer who has such a device installed will have access to its readings (how and what to do it - see below).



That is, from July 1, 2020 to December 31, 2021, ordinary metering devices will be installed at the expense of the tariff sources of energy companies (but in some regions where smart metering was included in the tariff earlier, smart devices will be installed in whole or in part), and only from 1 January 2022 smart meters will begin to be installed throughout the country (but not right away - see "When will I have smart metering and how much will it cost?").



(3) Starting from January 1, 2021, all developers commissioning apartment buildings must equip them with smart metering devices, to hand over these devices into operation to the guaranteeing supplier, and the guaranteeing supplier will connect them to its smart metering system and give access to their readings to the owners of apartments and non-residential premises.



Let's summarize the intermediate result. There are 3 terms:

• July 1, 2020 - from this moment on, all newly installed metering devices instead of those that have failed, lost, with an expired calibration interval (except for those that are installed by developers in buildings under construction) - at the expense of network companies and guaranteeing suppliers (in apartment buildings), however until all such devices are intelligent;
• January 1, 2021 - from this moment on, all multi-apartment buildings to be commissioned must be equipped with smart meters;
• January 1, 2022 - from this moment on, all new meters should be smart, and the consumer who has such a meter should be provided with remote access to its readings.

3. What does a smart meter do?

If you open PP No. 890 dated 06/19/2020 , you will see a long, several pages, list of technical characteristics of the smart meter. So, what does a smart meter look like and what does it do in minimal design? Here's a quick summary:

• Outwardly, it looks like an ordinary meter , perhaps only a small antenna can indicate that the meter is intelligent;
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• At the same time, the interval between verifications of such a complex device remains practically the same as for conventional metering devices: at least 16 years for single-phase and at least 10 years for three-phase . (Verification is a confirmation of the compliance of measuring instruments with metrological characteristics; it is performed on special equipment).

Let's summarize: an intelligent metering device is a powerful source of data for both the consumer and the supplier, and for the entire power system at the point of the network where it is connected. But this is not a passive meter, but an active element: it can produce a limitation, give a signal about interference in its work.

4. What smart metering systems are there?

All smart metering systems (IMS) can be divided into several types.

By architecture:

(1) IMS containing a minimum number of levels - two (the metering device itself and the server on which the readings are stored, and to which the consumer has access to his meters);



(2) MIS having intermediate levels - at least one - this is the level of data collection from meters to a data collection and transmission device (DRC) or to a base station. DRC is usually connected via a power network (PLC technology, Power line communication - data transmission over a power network at high frequencies). The base station uses radio frequencies of the unlicensed spectrum: 2.4 GHz, 868/915 MHz, 433 MHz, 169 MHz with a range of up to 10 km in line of sight. At the level of the DRC, the base station, data is collected from the meters (interrogation of meters), data is sent to the server (usually via a GPRS modem), as well as information is received from the server and sent to the meters. In addition, sometimes the devices themselves can relay each other's signal further along the network. The servers themselves can also be a multi-tier system.

By the method (technology) of communication, the ISU can use the main technologies:

(1) Data transmission over a low-voltage non-power network (twisted pair, laid in special boxes in apartment buildings, in offices, at enterprises or RS-485 , for connection with a nearby USPD). The advantage of this method is sometimes its cheapness (if only there were free boxes or twisted pair was laid earlier). The disadvantage is that a twisted pair cable with mass use (40-200 metering devices in each apartment building) will be subject to the same numerous failures, deliberate breaks, which will exorbitantly increase the cost of maintenance.



(2) Data transmission over the power network ( PLC technology ) from meters to USPD. Further - using a GPRS modem to the server.

This technology increases the cost of a separate meter, the cost of a USPD with a modem, which is installed on 20 - 40 - 100 meters in the house, also increases the cost of the system by 10-20% per metering point. There may be impulse noise in the network (for example, from old technology), which can reduce reliability and require an increase in the number of polls. To install a USPD with a modem, you need to have a lockable input device (cabinet) of an apartment building, a place in it, or purchase and hang on the wall a protected, lockable, burglar-resistant metal box.



However, the PLC-USPD technology is used quite widely, it is already a kind of "basic standard" in intelligent accounting systems, in relation to which other solutions are evaluated.



(3) Data transmission over the radio channel ( LPWAN technologies - LoRaWAN), while the meters have a special radio module and antenna, and in settlements at high points base stations or concentrators are installed that receive a signal from numerous meters and other smart home devices. The advantages of these systems are:

• Large coverage radius - up to 10-15 km in a straight line in the absence of obstacles;
• Ability to connect multiple devices (various types of meters, smart home devices) within the base station's reception range;
• The cost of a base station, its installation and maintenance per one metering point in some cases may be lower than the cost of DRC per point.

Disadvantages of LPWAN - LoRaWAN systems:

• Lack of uniform standards, novelty of the system;
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(4) GPRS-... This is a solution for equipping small points, as well as for those points in apartment buildings, other buildings that are not "finished off" by the USPD or base station. If the ISU in the city is built on the basis of the USPD, then for small houses with 2-4-10 apartments, the USPD may be more expensive per metering point than a device with a built-in GPRS modem. But the disadvantage of meters with a built-in GPRS modem is the high price and operating costs (you need to pay monthly for a SIM card for each such device for the sake of several communication sessions per month). In addition, a large number of such devices sending data to the server will require a wide channel to receive such messages: it is one thing to interrogate several thousand USPD and base stations in the region, and another - hundreds of thousands of individual metering devices.For this, an intermediate level is created from the DRC and (or) base stations.

By affiliation (property)

Intelligent accounting systems may belong to:

• For network companies, these are all metering points, except for those participating in the wholesale market, as well as apart from apartment buildings. There may be several grid organizations in a region: one large, part of PJSC Rosseti, and several small ones belonging to different owners and municipalities. They should establish a free exchange of data in the part that concerns metering devices at the border of their networks and consumers that are connected to the networks of several owners;
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There is one more component of any ISU - security requirements , including data transfer protocols. These requirements (the so-called "violator model", as well as protocol specifications) have not yet been approved, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Communications have been instructed to develop and approve them by January 1, 2021. And until July 1, 2021, a unified coding of all metering points will be introduced - any data of any metering devices will be tied with a unique code to the point in the network where the device is installed (now each owner of the IMS uses its own coding). This, given the massive and free exchange of smart metering data between energy companies, will create a distributed database with clear identification. At the same time, the data of each consumer is protected by the requirements for the protection of personal data.



To summarize: smart metering systems can be based on different architectural solutions, use different data transmission technologies, belong to different owners, but all of them must provide the minimum functionality of data, operations, actions that are prescribed in PP 890.

5. When will I have smart metering and how much will it cost?

First of all, let's make it clear: conventional and smart metering devices at the expense of network companies and guaranteeing suppliers will not be installed for everyone , but from July 1, 2020 only for those who have:

1. The meter is missing or lost;
2. The meter is out of order;
3. The service life of the device has expired (it is 25-30 years);
4. The device does not correspond to the accuracy class (2.0 for household consumers - that is, its error lies in the range of 2%. Old meters with class 2.5 must be taken out of service. Accuracy class is the number in the circle on the front panel of the device);
5. The verification interval has expired - usually this interval is 16 years for household appliances.

   But, in connection with anti-coronavirus measures, meter readings with an expired calibration interval for household consumers are accepted until January 1, 2021;

6. During technological connection to the network, during the construction of apartment buildings by the developer.

There is one more significant point defined by the legislator:

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So, if you, as a household consumer, have expired the calibration interval, you can transmit the meter readings until 01.01.2021, and they will be accepted.



If your metering device is inoperative or absent (and there is a possibility for its installation), then you contact the network organization (if you have an individual house or other room that is not connected to the intra-house networks of an apartment building) .



If you have an apartment in an apartment building that has a common network or non-residential premises in an apartment building connected to intra-house networks, then you turn to the supplier of last resort.The scope of responsibility to establish accounting on the part of the supplier of last resort does not include blocked houses, townhouses with separate inputs - this is the scope of the network organization.



How quickly will the meter be delivered to you? PP No. 442determines the period of 6 months from the date of application. It is necessary to understand that many owners of apartments and houses were in no hurry to replace the metering device for their money before July 1, 2020, if they come along with those whose device fails after July 1, they will create a large queue for replacement (the number of specialists, replacing metering devices cannot increase immediately and several times). If you are such a consumer who was in no hurry to replace your appliance before July 1, receiving an invoice according to a standard, perhaps you did this because the standard was more profitable for you than the calculation of actual consumption? That is, you must be prepared that the free replacement of the metering device will lead to the fact that the actual fee charged according to real indications will increase (or you will have to start saving energy in your apartment or house),and for non-payment, the metering device will turn you off even without leaving the brigade.



But what will happen if my metering device is out of order and I do not apply to the network or to the guaranteeing supplier (in an apartment building)? Sooner or later (as soon as the replacement queue decreases), the network organization or the guaranteeing supplier will contact you themselves and offer to install the device. You must agree on the place of installation (or replacement, if the device was there before).



Some consumers do not want to wait and are ready to pay for the installation of a smart device themselves, just to receive a metering device "out of turn", without waiting for the existing one to expire the calibration interval, or without waiting for January 1, 2022. The legislation does not prohibit the installation of metering devices for such consumers for a fee. This, incidentally, reduces the burden on the tariff for all consumers.



But what is the price of smart metering?Let's count. Previously, a household consumer paid for a replacement with the installation of a conventional meter from 1 to 2 thousand rubles (depending on whether he needs a one or two-rate meter) on average 1 time in 16 years, that is, on average 5.2 - 10.4 rubles. per month of consumption.



The cost of an intelligent device, taking into account the USPD system or base stations, servers and software per one household consumer, taking into account installation and commissioning, is expected to be about 7-10 thousand rubles. - depending on the type of system, the density of consumers and, which is important, depending on the dynamics of prices in the market for smart devices. This, with a period of 16 years, is about 36.5 - 52.1 rubles. per month or 5-10% of the monthly electricity bill for most consumers.



Does this mean that the tariff for the population will grow by 5-10% due to smart metering? This is not an easy question, since the residential tariff is cross-subsidized by high voltage consumers, mainly by large industry. And the tariff of the population itself is indexed annually by a value not higher than the official inflation figure - this only covers the inflationary increase in costs. Therefore, the answer to the question about the increase in the tariff for the population is as follows: it is expected that the growth rate of the tariff for the population will not exceed inflation, that is, the overwhelming part of the costs of intellectual metering in part of the population will fall on consumers-legal entities, whose share in consumption is about 80%. For many of them, this will be an imperceptible increase (price fluctuations in the wholesale market have much wider limits), but in the aggregate, of course, smart metering is a noticeable burden on the tariff. Moreover, since quite a lot of citizens have accumulated who were in no hurry to replace the metering device for money, this load will be significant in the first years. And the program itself for replacing accounting with an intelligent one will drag on for 16 years - until the calibration interval for conventional devices that were installed in the first half of 2020 expires.



How can we reduce and optimize the tariff load from the implementation of smart metering?The first thing that suggests itself is to set a price ceiling for such devices. But this is an extremely ineffective solution - limiting the price, according to our experience of 30 years ago, will immediately lead to a shortage of devices on the market. And no one removed the responsibilities for installation and sanctions for non-installation from guaranteeing suppliers and network organizations.

We, power engineers, still hope that competition between manufacturers of smart devices and systems will lead to a significant drop in prices in the coming years (historically, prices for all electronics tend to decrease, especially for those electronics that use the element base of not the highest performance) ...

But there is another way to reduce the costs of smart metering implementation. This is a comprehensive equipment of apartment buildings taking into account... How it works? Now the legislation says: those points where the device is absent, is out of order, lost, the service life has expired, or the interval between verification of metering devices has expired, are subject to accounting free of charge. But inside an apartment building, this means that the replacement of metering devices with intelligent ones will be "full of holes" - here they replaced them, but here they will be replaced only in 2027, and here - in 2036 ... And the brigade will have to go from house to house for 1-2- 3 devices from 40-100 metering points. Time, gasoline, wages ... And in order to ensure that all such devices have access to the intelligent system (to the server) from 2022, you will have to install USPD on all houses, or cover all cities with a network of base stations ... In just a year! As a result, the cost per metering point in the first years will increase significantly, it will be extremely ineffective, point automation,which will not give an effect to either the tenants, or the managing organizations, or the power engineers.



The way out of this situation is the complex equipment of apartment buildings . At the regional level, a long-term program for equipping the ISU is being developed and approved , taking into account how much the tariff can "pull". In this program, specific houses are spelled out, which this year should fall under 100% equipment. First of all, the program will include houses where the highest intra-house losses are incurred by additional costs for residents and management companies, houses whose networks are PLC ready, houses that are compactly located near the base station. The team will work on one house from the beginning to the moment it is fully equipped, which will dramatically reduce the cost of installation.

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To summarize: the existing legislation requires "point" equipment with intelligent metering of apartment buildings, while such equipment can take 16 years. In the first years, a lot of money should be invested, and then - little by little. It is extremely ineffective and expensive, and will have no effect.



The proposed way is to enable the region to form a comprehensive program, taking into account the possibilities of the tariff for a long period. This program will indicate specific houses that are to be 100% equipped in a given year. This will allow not to scatter funds, but to gain control over their spending: after all, it is much easier to check whether there is a system in 400 apartment buildings that should be equipped this year than if the device is installed in 40,000 pieces of individual points scattered across 6,000 houses ?

6. What will smart metering give me (consumer, business)?

First of all, the smart device frees the consumer from the need to take and transmit his readings , and the power supply and networks reduce the costs of bypassing the controllers (although they do not disappear at all - after all, smart meters also require periodic maintenance, troubleshooting on the spot).



An important function is hourly accounting , which will allow any consumer-legal entity and individual entrepreneur, even an ice cream stand, to switch to an hourly rate at any time, with the calculation of the prices for energy and capacity corresponding to the prices on the wholesale market (this is the 3rd - 6th price categories in the tariff menu). The residential consumer can choose one of 3 tariffs - one-rate, day-night and peak-half-peak-night. And not just to choose, but according to the dynamics of hourly consumption, the intelligent system itself will show which of the tariffs is more profitable, when and how much . And by following the recommendations for aligning the load schedule within the existing tariff, price category, recommendations for energy saving, the consumer will be able to further reduce the energy bill, while smart metering will help to understand where and how much it can be reduced . Due to the many parameters considered by the smart device, it is possible to introduce a wider tariff menu,giving even more opportunities to choose the optimal tariff.



With the installation of a smart device, the consumer (so far only a legal entity) has the opportunity to participate in the demand management market - to receive payment for the fact that the consumer has transferred consumption from peak hours to those hours where the load on the power system is lower. This will reduce energy prices on the wholesale market by reducing the load and payment for the reserve capacity of the most expensive, inefficient and often environmentally "dirty" stations and power units. This is a very promising market - the service of the Chief Power Engineer at the enterprise, thanks to participation in demand management, ceases to be only a source of costs, begins to give a stream of income, which can even recoup its maintenance.



Thanks to intelligent metering in apartment buildings , general house losses will sharply decrease , which will reduce the payment of residents and eliminate the costs of management companies to pay for excess intra-house losses, freeing up money for maintenance and improvement of the house and the area around it.



Smart metering data, with their effective use, makes the enterprise and business a little "smarter" technologically, because all the subtleties of the technological process are reflected in fluctuations in the consumption of active and reactive power , and their decoding, incl. accurate to the minute, can provide an additional source of data to optimize equipment operation .



Since a smart device counts energyboth for reception and for delivery , then the consumer in a private house has the opportunity to install a wind turbine or solar panels with a capacity of up to 15 kW (this will require a change in the conditions for technical connection in the network organization), conclude an agreement with the guaranteeing supplier serving you on the supply of surplus to the network according to prices not higher than those of the wholesale market (with VAT on average about 3 rubles / kWh), while the delivery price will depend on the hour - at night it is cheaper!



Thanks to a distributed system of tens and hundreds of thousands of intelligent metering devices that measure hourly and even minutely graphs of active and reactive power, voltage and current parameters, the power system receives an invaluable source of data to optimize its operating modes, identifying reserves and power shortages broken down by each node, feeder, substation, reducing losses and detecting illegal connections, identifying points in the network where reactive power compensation will be effective, local generation, incl. on renewable energy sources, energy storage for smoothing peaks and equalizing parameters in the network. Taking into account the new data, the investment programs of generation and networks, leading to an increase in tariffs, can be revised and optimized.



To summarize: strategically, in the future ten years, after smart metering devices spread everywhere, smart metering will transform the energy industry, make it more efficient, and therefore more affordable for the end consumer, will provide ample opportunities for the consumer to optimize his bill for energy, participation in demand management, will allow the implementation of efficient tariff menus. As a result, this will recoup the additional costs accounted for in the tariff, making it possible to reduce its growth in the long term, however, in the first years, taking such programs into account in the tariff can give several additional percent of growth.

Smoothing this growth, as we defined above, will allow the adoption of a comprehensive program for equipping with intelligent metering, indicating specific apartment buildings that are 100% equipped in each of the years of the program.

7. What's next?

The program of equipping with intelligent metering will stretch for 16 years - until the moment when all points will have such metering. 16 years is the period until the last conventional devices installed in 2020-2021 have worked out their calibration interval. This period can be reduced to 10 years by adopting the appropriate regional programs for integrated equipment (they will unload the tariff in the first years of installation, and find sources to increase the volume of work in 5-7 years).



The smart metering program will push the installation of smart appliances on other resources - hot and cold water, gas and heat. Having received a smart metering device in operation, many owners of apartments and houses will be interested in other smart home systems - various sensors and controllers (pipe breaks, gas leaks, breaking windows, opening windows and doors, video surveillance systems, curtains control, music, climate control, etc. lighting ...)



An intelligent electricity meter also has room to grow. The functionality that is now defined is not called minimal for nothing . In the future, the meter may become a "smart hub"to concentrate information from all devices of a smart house or apartment, devices installed in the entrance, counters of other resources. A smart meter can record the slightest changes in voltage and current, reactive power, and understand which devices are turned on and off - not only in the house, but also in the office, in production. This will allow you to understand what devices and equipment are working, in what periods, how effectively - to organize effective energy management, under the control of "artificial intelligence" represented by millions of smart devices, big data processing tools, statistics, a database of best practices for selecting and managing modes of any equipment.



Smart meters will change our life in the same way that mobile communications, the Internet, and the mobile Internet have changed it. We are on the threshold of the future, where all electrical devices will be a single living, self-organizing organism, serving the convenience, comfort and effective human activity.



PS Smart metering is too broad and multifaceted topic. If you have any questions about organization, economics, logistics - I will try to answer in the comments.