Application of Advanced Metering Infrastructure in Smart Grids

This survey paper is an excerpt of a more comprehensive study on Smart Grid (SG) and the role of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in SG. The survey was carried out as part of a feasibility study for creating a Net-Zero community in a city in Ontario, Canada. SG is not a single technology; rather it is a combination of different areas of engineering, communication and management. This paper focuses on AMI which as the foundation of SG is responsible for collecting all the data and information from loads and consumers. AMI is also responsible for implementing control signals and commands to perform necessary control actions as well as Demand Side Management (DSM). In this paper we introduce SG and its features, establish the relationship between smart grid and AMI, explain three main subsystems of AMI and discuss some issues related to design and deployment of AMI.