Analysis of Smart Meter Communication and Development

In July 2009, after the State Grid identified the development plan of the smart grid, smart grid development has become a key development area in China. According to the plan, during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the total investment in the grid's intellectual property investment by the State Grid Corporation was 286.11 billion yuan, and the average annual investment was 57.22 billion yuan, which was more than double the average annual investment of 25 billion yuan during the "11th Five-Year Plan" period. As China's smart grid enters a full-scale construction period, stimulating smart meters has also generated a huge market demand. According to the "12th Five-Year Plan" of the smart grid, the national grid will have installed 230 million smart meters during the 12th Five-Year Plan period. only. According to the research report of GF Securities, from the number of tenders in previous years, the amount of tenders for smart meters from State Grid Corporation in 2009 to 2013 was 2.9 million, 45.37 million, 59.9 million, 75.93 million and 45.72 million, respectively. Electricity meter demand is stimulated by rural network reform, new demand, and new demand. The total demand exceeds the possibility of initial planning. Another brokerage researcher said that from the current tendering process, the amount of tenders for smart meters has already exceeded 100 million, and the total number of over 70 million will be very large this year. The huge market potential has attracted many companies to intervene, and smart meter related companies have also mushroomed.

According to Li Xiaoxian, smart grid market manager of the Ministry of Industry and Power Devices of Greater China and South Asia, STMicroelectronics said that the smart grid is one of the company's focus areas. ST will work with our global partners to jointly advance the evolution of key technologies and provide the industry with advanced and reliable solutions for smart meters as a whole. The smart meter IC ST75MM, released recently, is the world’s first smart meter IC that supports the METERS&MORE open communication standard. The new product enables smart meter devices to achieve wide interconnection through power line communication (PLC) technology, which will help promote smart grids. And bring maximum benefits to the environment, consumers and power supply companies.

As an intelligent terminal of a smart grid, a smart meter is not a conventional electric energy meter. In addition to the metering function of the basic electricity consumption of a conventional electric energy meter, the smart meter has a plurality of two-way functions in order to adapt to the use of the smart grid and new energy. Rate intelligence function, customer end control function, bidirectional data communication function of a variety of data transmission modes, anti-electricity stealing function and other intelligent functions. One of the most important aspects of smart metering is the management and analysis of data and the interconnection of data. The communication technology represented by carrier and wireless will be one of the areas that will continue to develop rapidly.

Li Xiaoxian stated that ST has a long-term focus on technical investment and experience in the field of smart meter communications. In the 1980s, ST introduced the industry's first PLC communication chip, and in the more than 20 years, it has become the largest supplier of PLC chips in the international market. ST maintains close cooperation with many industry technology leaders and public utility companies and has long-term experience in collaborative development and maintenance upgrades. ST uses its global leading PLC, ARM Cortex-MMCU and other key devices to provide a variety of advanced communications solutions. ST75MM is a highly integrated power line carrier communication (PLC) system-on-chip (SoC) that fully supports METERS&MORE. METERS&MORE is an open, interconnected communication standard jointly promoted by technology leaders and public utilities companies in many industries around the world. With millions of deployments and long-term on-site verifications, METERS&MORE can effectively meet the challenges of smart meter interconnection and interoperability.

With the development of smart grid construction and the increase of intelligent investment, smart meters will gradually replace traditional ones in the future development process, but smart meters are also full of challenges while ushering in unlimited opportunities, such as adopting the most advanced technologies and controls. The contradiction of investment costs, the contradiction between the requirements for reliability, efficiency, and uniformity, and the complex and diverse realities. Li Xiaoxian stated that ST, as a supplier of smart meter chips, actively promotes the development of new technologies, new solutions and advanced semiconductor technologies, and provides world-class high-performance, highly-integrated products to help customers achieve the best return on investment. At the same time, ST will share its experience with key partners and jointly promote the development and integration of smart meter standards. ST's PLC, metrology, MCU, RTC, power supply, storage, RF, interface and other smart meter main IC products are used by system integrators for a long time in various environments in many countries around the world. Based on these extensive experiences, ST is confident to develop innovative products and solutions in the face of new market challenges.

After years of development, China's electric meter industry has gone from the early induction meter, the ordinary electronic meter, the prepaid meter, and the pay-rate meter to the smart meter that meets the market demand today. Today's smart energy meters not only have independent MCUs, memories, hard clocks, communication interfaces, load switches, and encryption units, but also have functions such as energy metering, fee-controlled management, data freezing, data encryption, and event warning. The level of intelligence is significantly improved. . The future electricity meters will be smarter, more reliable, more secure, have higher integration and interoperability, and especially communication technologies represented by carrier and wireless will be one of the areas that will continue to develop rapidly. Global smart grid upgrading is in progress. With the investment of new technologies and large-scale system improvement, smart meters will serve the environment and people's livelihood better. The market prospects are very positive. The smart meter represents the development direction of future intelligent terminals for energy-saving smart grid end users.