Most Innovative - Remote Meter Reading-West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Co.

This is an innovative project implemented by West Bengal State Electricity Distribution

Company Limited (WBSEDCL). The company needed a solution for monitoring power consumption

of their bulk customers, where it wasn’t feasible to send a person to multiple remote

locations to collect meter readings. In some cases, readings needed to be collected on a

daily basis.

In their existing system, personnel made visits to all the consumer premises to collect

meter readings using an MRI (Meter Reading Instrument). Then, all meter information

including reading data was downloaded from MRIs to their Bulk Billing Application Package

and bills were generated. This data was also used for analysis of the Load Survey and

Phasor Diagram of bulk consumers. Energy Bills, Defaulter List, Disconnection Notice and

different reports are also generated using the same package. The entire data collection

(meter reading) process was time consuming and they were not able to generate bills and

other important reports on time. Thus came the thought of a system that could fetch meter

readings remotely. Research revealed that GSM would be the cheapest medium to connect

electric meters to the divisional office. The company had a series of consultancy sessions

with IIT Kharagpur, BSNL Kolkata, Electronic Corp. of (I) Ltd, Kolkata, and Secure Meter

Ltd.

The solution that was put in place involved connecting meters with GSM modems and BSNL

SIM cards; the meters were devised accordingly. The firmware inside the meter collects the

reading from the meter and other required data on a periodic basis and saves it.

Divisional circle and central commercial offices can fetch this information from the

meters remotely whenever required. In the central and divisional office, a PC connected

with a PSTN modem dials out to meters, which have GSM connectivity and fetches the meter

readings.

The collected data are then fed directly to their Bulk Billing Application Package to

generate bills and other MIS reports. In addition, the meter also helps them minimize the

chances of electricity theft. If any customer tries to tamper with the meter, the modem

inside the meter instantly sends the information to the central office.

face="Verdana">IT Solution: GSM modems are used with the

meters by which divisional and central commercial offices can instantly fetch meter

readings remotely.

Impact: Improved efficiency of

Revenue Management System, detection of meter tampering in real time, deploying close

vigilance.

Implementation Partner:



IIT Kharagpur, BSNL Kolkata, Electronic Corp. of (I) Ltd, Kolkata, and Secure Meter Ltd.

This project saved time, effort, and costs of sending people to remote areas for

collecting meter data. It also helped to tackle court cases or legal battles by producing

the machine generated ?tampering events? in real time. With this system in place, WBSEDCL

can continuously monitor consumers? status and can also do instant analysis of different

consumption reports. These reports will increase the overall efficiency of the revenue

management system. The timely generation of MIS and other vital reports will also help the

administration to take decisions on vital issues. The project also benefited the State

Electricity Board to reset the power supply demand when needed remotely on the basis of

readings received from these GSM-based meters. It reduced the involvement of human

interference and now the power company can have continuous monitoring of their consumers?

status. In addition, they don?t face the problem of sending personnel over longer

distances.

The key challenge was to convince the SERC (State Electricity Regulatory Commission) to

implement this system, because according to SERC norms, meter reading can only be done in

the consumer?s presence.

Finally, WBSEDCL was able to convince them and got the green signal to implement the

system for bulk customers. They have now finished the test bed phase and are into the

commercial run phase, where meters of their bulk customers are being changed and brought

into this monitoring system.

WBSEDC is using these meters with

GSM modems

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