Survey of smart metering communication technologies

The smart metering system allows continuous reading and recording of many measurands, e.g. power quality and load curve profile, as well as the early-stage failure detection, monitoring of the meter lid opening alarm (detection of unlicensed actions), detection of the opposite energy flow and many other useful signals. The capabilities and information provided by a meter reading system are important for a variety of purposes, including (but not limited to) interval data, time-based demand data, time-based energy data (usage and production), outage management, service interruption, service restoration, quality of service monitoring, distribution network analysis, distribution planning, demand reduction, customer billing and work management. This paper provides an overview of communication technologies used in smart metering, summary of the recommended technologies for specific areas of smart measurement and a short description of the communication technology used in the Croatian distribution system operator (DSO).