Smart metering explained
Smart meter, digital meter, intelligent meter, electronic meter
It would be hair splitting to attempt any meaningful distinction between the terms Smart meter, digital meter, intelligent meter, and electronic meter. Which term to use is a matter of convention; and it seems as if ‘smart meter’ is now being preferred.
A smart meter is basically defined as a power meter that can be upgraded with other features than just energy measuring for billing purposes.
(Another definition of a smart meter applied by Mark England from Sentec sounds: a meter with two-way communication, a consumer display, and generally a disconnect function as well. Usually it displays consumption in various ways. But clearly, this definition is too specific.)
First of all, a smart meter is a fully electronic meter (and not mechanical). And apart from a dramatic reduction of energy consumed by the meter itself, the digital technology opens up to a plenitude of functions.
For one thing the whole data read out operation is revolutionized with the possibility of remote communication with the meter. This means that the human factor can be totally dismissed of. Reading errors caused by the human eye or misreading due to numbers written by a blurry pen are innumerable. And they cost time, manpower and money. This is history by now.
A smart meter is not necessarily an electrical meter, though they are often used synonymously. Smart metering also refers to the measurement of heat, cooling, water and gas by means of intelligent meters.
The electromechanical meter simply measures the consumed energy. It’s a single dimension meter. Consumption data are being read manually by the consumer or by an employee at the utility, typically once a year for the sake of regulating the bill which has been payed in advance based on the estimated consumption – clearly, a cumbersome process.
The electronic meter is a multipurpose meter recording a number of other parameters besides energy such as voltage quality and load profile.
In combination with clock registering, the electronic meter is capable of delivering real time data giving an exact picture of energy consumption during the day.