Smart Meters and Advanced Metering

Where this fits

How digital metering adds interval data, remote communications and operational visibility.

Core system ideas

Smart meters can record electricity use in time intervals rather than only cumulative billing totals.

Utility systems can use meter communications for billing, outage detection and some service operations.

Meter data raises privacy, cybersecurity, communications and data-management requirements.

Interfaces and tradeoffs

Distribution connects the bulk system to millions of individual loads and increasingly to distributed generation and storage. Local voltage, feeder capacity and asset condition matter as much as system-wide energy supply.

What organizations measure

Meter communications success, interval completeness, outage events and data quality.