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AMI & SMART METERING Spotlight on AMI Advanced Metering Infrastructure: ISGAN case studies Briefly put: Lessons and best practice from AMI deployments worldwide highlighting key elements of a successful AMI rollout. Includes lessons from Canada, Korea and Italy with a particular focus on customer engagement and tariff structures as pre-cursors to success. The International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN) presented its Case Book on Advanced Metering Infrastructure at the 4 th Clean Energy Ministerial meeting in late 2013. The case book provides insights from a number of experiences around the world on Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) investments and projects. Lessons are shared by various jurisdictions around the world, including Canada, Korea and Italy. Not all countries who are developing smart grid initiatives or roadmaps are including a comprehensive AMI strategy as part of the greater initiative, yet some of the lessons which have come out of these case studies can very well be transferred to other elements of smart grid deployments. For countries or utilities considering AMI as part of their Smart Grid strategy, these can be considered “qualitative insights into the potential costs and benefits of AMI and the associated business cases for investment” 1 . Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) refers to a system of technologies that measure, collect, communicate, aggregate, and analyse energy usage data from metering devices. AMI is often viewed as a platform technology, because once a basic level of monitoring and communications capability is in place, other systems and new applications can be built onto it. At its core, AMI involves advanced metering, or smart meters, broadly defined as meters that offer functionalities such as interval metering, automatic meter reading, two-way communication, meter data communicated to in-home displays and management systems, outage and theft detection, and remote client connect and disconnect. 2 Through increased data measurement and collection, these meters offer much more detailed information to both customers 1. Jennifer Hiscock, ISGAN Annex 2 National Expert, Natural Resources, Canada, Spotlight on Advanced Metering Infrastructure, International Smart Grid Action Network, 2013 2. Jennifer Hiscock, ISGAN Annex 2 National Expert, Natural Resources, Canada, Spotlight on Advanced Metering Infrastructure, International Smart Grid Action Network, 2013 3. IBID. 16 and distribution companies, which can be valuable in its own right. However, the value proposition grows when other technologies such as home energy management systems, distributed generation (from roof- top solar, biomass or wind for example), electric vehicles (EVs) and electricity storage allow customers to participate in the electricity system as a buyer and seller of power. This shift in the customer role is often referred to as the shift from consumer to prosumer (i.e. a producing consumer), and AMI can support many of the related value propositions. However, in order to get to that point, there are key considerations which could make all the difference to the success of your AMI deployment. 3 all regarding increased/inaccurate bills. Independent audits revealed that in both instances, extreme weather had coincided with the installations and the perceived inaccuracies. In California, it was found that less than 1% of the 5.5 million smart meters installed had malfunctioned. In Texas, it was 25 out of 1.1 million. As savings can be hard to highlight, especially in the early days of a smart metering programme, in a number of cases utilities have found that by highlighting the savings to the utility, and how these savings can be passed on to the customer, they have had more success than by predicting how customer behaviour can lead to savings. In the US, a 90/60/30 day communication strategy is becoming best practice Customer Engagement Industry wide, effective, well thought out customer engagement is being recognised as a key component to any successful AMI project. Effectively engaging customers is a way of building up trust and keeping communication channels open – vital for when things don’t go quite as planned. While in theory AMI installations can lead to lower bills, in some cases, they have had the opposite effect due to a number of reasons: more accurate billing or severe weather events occurring at the same time as the installations. Additionally, initial higher bills may be due to a change in billing cycles or higher than usual consumption. In California and Texas, complaints were received shortly after smart meters were installed, METERING INTERNATIONAL ISSUE - 1 | 2014