METERING.COM
ISSUE 4 | 2012
Keys to Smart Grid Security
By Dave Buster, Director, Solutions Architecture, Elster Solutions
Smart grid innovation • Data analytics • Empower Demand
Smart Energy International
COMPONENTS
SMART GRID CHALLENGES FUEL
THE INNOVATION PIPELINE
By Olivier Monnier, Markus Staeblein and Don Shaver, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI)
For the past couple of years, the smart grid world has been
concentrated mainly around North America, Australia and
Europe, with the focus on smart electrical meters. Utilities and
governments from other countries were curious about the
deployments in those regions, and they began taking the pulse of
these regions, using their work in the smart grid industry to pave
the way for their region to turn the smart grid concept into reality.
• Major local powerline communications (PLC) standards like
PRIME and G3 concentrate high market attention with many new
suppliers participating, and we are starting to see some volume
deployments in areas such as Spain.
• Worldwide standards organizations are pushing for larger market
adoption like IEEE P1901.2, ITU G.9903, G.9904 for PLC and IEEE
802.15.4g. and ZigBee® for RF technologies.
Today the map of smart grid deployments is much larger and
smart grid activities continue to spread across new geographical
areas. The Chinese government recently released its five-year plan,
where the smart grid is at the forefront of the economic engine.
Chinese meter manufacturers are also investing in the export
market, supported by various recent acquisitions or joint ventures
and their participation in local smart meter deployment. India is
also making some large scale experiments with low power radio
frequency (LPRF)-enabled meter deployments, and the India Smart
Grid Forum is building a serious plan for the coming years. Japan
recently released their first specifications for smart meters and the
local utility, TEPCO, is targeting rollouts with aggressive timeframes,
while other Asian smart grid markets are opening up, such as South
Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia.
On the other hand, PLC standards are still fragmented, so
integration is not advisable and flexibility remains key. Narrowband
PLC standards may converge in a couple of years, and the PLC
market will expand at the same time, leading to further integration
and optimization. Also, new PLC technology could be developed
in the next two to three years to provide better spectral efficiency.
New communication techniques are also emerging, like Wi-Fi, which
is low power enough and cost compatible with a large deployment,
or near field communication (NFC), used as a prepayment solution
or for local data logging, for instance.
So far electrical meters have been the key driver for the smart
grid dynamic, pushing distribution and transmission equipment
to evolve, like data concentrators that collect information from
the smart meters and send them back to the backhaul. Smart
substations with power quality and analytics will be next. Water, gas
and heat meter deployment waves are in preparation, and smart
homes and buildings applications are accelerating.
Across the globe, we see different trends emerging for
communication requirements, metrology, security (anti-tampering
and encryption) and advanced functions. At the system level,
these trends translate into different hardware structures for meters
(plug-in communication modules versus one printed circuit board,
for instance). The semiconductor industry is also challenged
by fragmented standards that result in solutions ranging from
fully integrated systems on chip (SoC) to discrete solutions. The
compromise between integration and fixed function versus
standards evolution has been a key concern from day one on the
smart grid journey: many progresses have been made, the supplier
landscape has evolved, and some technical solutions are now
available. The common theme remains the need for optimized
system costs and reliable solutions.
One might ask, since some solutions are currently available, if the
smart grid is now ready for commoditization on a larger scale. In
practice, many challenges are yet to be solved, certainly at the
system level (power, isolation, protection) but also particularly at
the integration level, which is not limited only to hardware. At the
industry level, keeping the end user in the loop will also be one
critical factor for smart grid adoption, and players will have to be
creative to succeed.
COMMUNICATIONS TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS
Communications is a key element of the smart grid. On one hand,
standards are making progress:
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Each of these communications techniques is addressed by one
of two hardware methods – an integrated SoC or a system of
discrete components. Not to mention the software piece of the
system, the communication stack that must also be integrated
into the application. For simplicity, dealing with only one type of
communication would ease this integration; in practice developers
are challenged to integrate more than one stack.
COMBINING THE BEST OF EACH COMMUNICATION TO EXTEND
THE REACH
For instance, usage of LPRF versus PLC for meters has been a key
question for the past years, including a few areas of concern:
• Cost of infrastructure
• Topology of the grid
• Rural regions versus dense urban areas.
These are just a few of the typical proxies that help paint high level
requirements and determine the type of communications needed.
However, it is now clear that the key requirement for utility and
meter manufacturers is the connectivity success rate, which is the
ability to access and read any meter in any place in the “last mile
reach.” This equation can be solved by developing hybrid networks,
combining both wired and wireless solutions, translating in this
case to systems combining LPRF and PLC.
For instance, when examining home and building automation,
hybrid PLC/LPRF networks are key for delivering a robust smart grid.
Even if cost effective, LPRF can easily be affected by nearby wireless
devices like Wi-Fi, or signals may not be able to reach all the end
points from one single hub in a multi-family apartment building. PLC
could also be blocked by the noise generated by different appliances
or the structure of the network itself jumping from one breaker to
another. PLC and LPRF compensate each other to deliver enhanced
robustness, and solutions are available today to integrate PLC and LPRF
communications (running on one or both at the same time) onto one
device – hardware or software coordination or a combination of both.
THE “POWER” OF SOFTWARE
There are some key challenges and differentiated factors for hybrid
METERING INTERNATIONAL ISSUE - 4 | 2012
COMPONENTS
network and smart grid overall, and one of these
is software integration. This can be best illustrated
in the case of ultra-low power wireless sensor
networks in a home or building environment with
a network of battery operated devices, such as
temperature, lighting and environmental sensors,
where a long battery life is essential. Low power
and reduced latency wireless networks are key to
reach this longevity goal. In addition, the need
for hybrid wired/wireless networks further boost
network reliability and lifetime. For example, Texas
Instruments (TI) has demonstrated the feasibility
and benefit of hybrid networks and has designed
ultra-low power media access controller (MAC)
software, based on the IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH with
enhancement algorithm for power improvements
running on an ultra-low power microcontroller by
optimizing the active time of the LPRF. Uniquely
combined with IPv6 and RPL-based routing, the
solution provides global access via internet on
a smartphone, delivers increased LPRF network
Figure 1 – Example of an innovative wireless network sensor stack
longevity with 802.15.4e TSCH and extra robustness,
elements to consider. Those three components can be integrated
flexibility and convenience with hybrid PLC/LPRF (Figure 1). An
onto a single chip, and solutions such as these are available today.
innovative software solution is key, but the integration of this
In fact, for the past few years, this has been a recurrent request from
software needs to be simple.
the market, and integrated SoCs are now an additional option on
top of the need for flexibility with discrete designs.
INTEGRATION: SOFTWARE COMING FIRST?
The previous example highlighted the need for combined hardware
However, it is interesting to see that even a fully integrated solution
and software to deliver the proper smart grid solution, but it also
will still need to integrate various software stacks to incorporate the
underlined that integration happens first on the software level and
new functions of the smart meters, including:
will remain the key challenge of the incoming smart grid systems.
• Metrology code with the legally relevant portion and the
Looking at the anatomy of a smart electric meter from a hardware
application specific differentiated one
standpoint, metrology, application and communication are the key
COMPONENTS
• Advanced meter management
software
• Communication stacks
• Application profiles
• Device Language Message
Specification (DLMS)
• Incoming security standards.
Along with the right hardware,
some semiconductor companies
are innovating and investing in
ways to make software readily
available, easy to integrate and
simple to use (Figure 2). Extending
to more complex systems like
energy gateways where one needs
to combine several physical layers
(PHY) and several MACs running
over an advanced operating
system such as Linux, the software
complexity continues to increase,
and it is critical to provide
developers a full system solution
with all of the hardware, software,
tools and support.
Figure 2 – An integrated smart meter board combines all the hardware required for today’s electric meters with readily available and easy to integrate software
MANY INNOVATION OPPORTUNITIES AT THE SYSTEM LEVEL
Innovation in the smart grid will continue to include a combination
of hardware and software, even in places where commoditization
seems to be commonly accepted. For instance, with the addition of
power quality and analytics with high resolution, high bandwidth
metrology and power efficiency can be improved, as well as provide
a more smart sensing function to the electric meter. Applied to arc
fault detection, safety can also be improved.
Beyond the electrical meter, the smart grid wave is influencing
many activities in flow meter applications (e.g. water, gas, heat), and
there is a lot of innovation at the system level. In these applications,
developers need to find the right balance of hardware and software
integration to deliver more communication and advanced functions
while still delivering ultra-long battery lifetimes – as many as
10-15 years. It starts with power supply designs to comprehend
the various operating modes of the flow meter (active, idle,
super-fast wake-up time, power consumption in transmit mode).
Then developers need to use an ultra-low power microcontroller
consuming fractions of µA in sleep mode. New memory technology
like ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) technology
enables designers to slash power numbers in comparison to
traditional Flash memory technology. FRAM also makes bidirectional communication and over-the-air upgrades possible. This
technology, in addition to security (e.g. encryption, key storage) is
now available. LPRF radios need to support the existing standards,
such as WMBUS 169 MHz, and reduce power consumption while
delivering performance. Here again, the expertise, maturity and
quality of the software stack will make the difference, and many
investments and research studies are on-going on this realm.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES TO BRING BENEFITS TO THE END USER
Beyond the smart grid infrastructure and smart meters, the smart
grid wave needs to reach the end consumer and clearly show its
benefits. End consumers are typically looking for more security,
greater convenience and cheaper energy bills. More accurate
billings correspond with the ability to give consumers more detailed
information on their energy usage by application and provide
an opportunity to adapt behaviour. This technology, referred to
as energy disaggregation, is one future major asset of the smart
home/smart building applications that involve the measurement
of energy, transport of this information via wireless/wired or
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hybrid network technology and the treatment of information. It
calls for innovation on metrology, the communication network
and analytics, and the market is starting to see many applications
available in this arena for the consumer – smart plugs, thermostats
and more. The ability to extract more information on the low
voltage line represents an opportunity for utilities to potentially
provide more services to the end users and consumers.
The smart grid journey continues across more regions with various
integration levels and multiple standards. The semiconductor
industry needs to deliver the necessary flexibility and also the
correct level of integration of both software and hardware to
support current developments and foreseen high volume ramps.
Commoditization is not the default answer when it comes to solving
the challenges of the tomorrow’s grid. Innovation is a major piece
of ongoing investments to make communication networks more
reliable and power friendly, provide more services in addition to
electric meter deployments, and find the smart grid a home for end
consumers’ benefit. MI
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Olivier Monnier is the Worldwide Marketing Manager for TI’s Smart
Grid solutions team. He graduated in energy conversion and power
electronics at the Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Electricite et de
Mecanique (ENSEM, Nancy). He has more than 14 years experience in
industrial energy related applications.
Markus Staeblein is the general manager for TI’s Smart Grid solutions
team, with responsibility for developing smarter grid solutions
through innovative semiconductor products, leading edge software
and compliant integrated system solutions. He earned his Bachelor of
Science in electronics from FH Wiesbaden, Germany, and his Master’s
in business administration from The Open University Business School
in Milton Keynes, UK.
Don Shaver is a Texas Instruments fellow and chief architect for
TI’s Smart Grid products. He represents TI’s Smart Grid solutions
across industry standards organizations and drives TI’s influence
on governmental standards and regulatory activities. He earned a
Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering as well as a Master of
Science and Doctorate in systems and information science, all from
Syracuse University.
ABOUT THE COMPANY:
With millions of energy meter ICs shipped over the past decade, Texas
Instruments is the global systems provider for innovative, secure,
economical, and future-proof solutions for the worldwide smart grid.
TI offers the industry’s broadest smart grid portfolio of metrology
expertise, application processors, communication systems, power
management solutions, and analog components.
www.ti.com
METERING INTERNATIONAL ISSUE - 4 | 2012
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