What is Smart Metering?
Smart metering enables the consumption of energy, water and natural gases to be accurately recorded and shared digitally with energy suppliers. For home owners and facilities managers it means greater control of energy usage and costs. For energy firms it enables them to provide an accurate bill and the ability to optimise energy distribution when and where it is needed.
The growth of Smart Metering
Smart meters are changing how consumers and organisations use energy for the better. The green agenda has improved awareness and made consumers more conscientious of unnecessary wastage and overuse of high energy appliances. Smart metering allows consumers to make sensible decisions to reduce consumption and play a role in saving the planet.
Energy companies need to address the dynamic demand for power. By investing in smart meters they are enhancing grid resiliency, reducing the risk of energy blackouts and grid failures. The data they receive from smart meters allows them to:
- Monitor, analyse, and control energy production
- Identify usage patterns
- Detected and resolve anomalies faster
- Pin point the origin of an issue
- Redistribute energy loads to prevent
- Automate energy infrastructure to use resources more efficiently
The role of cellular connectivity in Smart Metering?
Global network coverage
For global IoT deployments, cellular connectivity is widely considered the most logical and reliable connection option. There is no need to build new infrastructure nor add additional network gateways to support remote deployments. Connectivity is via the cell towers that are already in place. This already tried and tested infrastructure, also provides the added benefit of cellular roaming. For solutions that may either be deployed to an unknown spot in the world or move frequently between regions, a cellular provider with multiple mobile network operators (MNOs) would be a sensible option.
eSIM
Deploying cellular connected devices around the world can be complex particularly with large scale projects that need to connect in different countries. eSIM can help. eSIM or eUICC refers to the over the air re-programmability of IoT SIMs enabling them to connect wherever they are in the world. It brings significant commercial and technical advantages for large scale deployments and applications that need a future proof connectivity solution. eSIM provides an insurance policy. It avoids single vendor lock-in, counteracts permanent roaming restrictions and allows for profile switching for commercial, technical or locational reasons. Without the need to physically swap out SIMs which can be an expensive process. eSIM can simplify the whole supply chain for IoT applications. Beginning with manufacturing, using a single SIM component for all devices and the option to embed the SIM or chip into the device on the production line and provision it later.
Low Power Wide Area Network
As the title implies, Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies use very low power to provide long-range cellular connectivity. LPWAN technologies use a small portion of the mature and reliable LTE bandwidth to provide connectivity that’s ideally suited to devices that rely on battery technology to function.
Historically, a significant limitation for cellular adoption has been power consumption and battery life (or lack of!). LPWAN protocols like LTE-M and NB-IoT make it possible for cellular IoT modules to not only save power when not in use, but to also transmit relatively small amounts of data with minimal power usage.
Both LTE-M and NB-IoT are designed to offer years of operation from a battery-driven power source. Since data throughput is limited (but often more than enough for relaying sensor data), simpler signal modulation schemes and less complex radio modems are needed, leading to diminished power requirements. Advances in wake/sleep modes on modern hardware only contribute to these benefits.
Security
Cyber security risks are a reality. It is essential to keep the gateway secure and create private connections to the Cloud. On-SIM technology and mobile core network services, resolves IoT device identity issues, enables dynamic scalability and provides defence against spoofing of IoT devices, ransomware events and unauthorised device access to network and Cloud services.
Since cellular networks use SIM cards for authentication, it’s exceedingly difficult to spoof the identity of a device. SIMs can be pre-provisioned to securely communicate with Cloud Services. Compare this to Wi-Fi: When connected to a public Wi-Fi network, devices are sharing the connection with all other devices on the network. If any individual device has a security concern, all devices are at-risk. Cellular keeps every device separate from every other device, ensuring the security of the data being transmitted.
Case Study
Switchee
Switchee Limited design and develop thermostats that help affordable housing residents to fight fuel poverty. Their smart home thermostat detects occupancy and learns in the background, creating an optimum heating profile without any user interaction; lowers energy bills by turning the heating off when nobody is at home; and provides social landlords with tools and information to make better asset management decisions.
Switchee found that many people in the affordable housing sector were more likely to not have wi-fi than have it due to affordability. It is very much the responsibility of the landlord to ensure the living conditions of their tenants meet a certain standard, being able to monitor and maintain heating and boiler usage was not always straight forward.
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