The NES Smart Metering System

The NES Smart Metering System

The World’s Most Advanced Metering System Solution for the Smart Grid

© 2009 Echelon. Echelon, LONWORKS, and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries.

Proven Energy Network

The NES System delivers

gas and water meter data

via the NES smart meter’s

M-Bus connection.

The NES System is already

displacing dedicated ripple

control infrastructures

(direct load control).

RF home services are

already deployed over a

wireless Modbus interface

to NES smart meters.

New service and billing

models like prepay energy,

time-of-use billing, and

tiered tariff structures are

in use and can be upgraded

remotely.

Features of the NES System∙ Remote meter reading and on-demand reading

∙ Remote firmware updates to meters

∙ Load profiling

∙ Remote updates and configuration parameters

by home, area, or service territory

∙ Power quality measurement and proof-of-

service reporting

∙ Flexible, configurable tariffs such as time-of-use

pricing, critical peak pricing, real-time pricing,

and prepayment

∙ Scaling to millions of meters

∙ Extensible to read water and gas meters

∙ Direct load/ripple control

∙ RF extension into homes over ZigBee, M-Bus,

and Modbus

∙ Transmission and distribution equipment

fault detection

∙ Real-time theft and outage detection

∙ Remote disconnect and verified reconnect

∙ Net or reverse metering for alternative energy

generation or microgeneration

∙ Grid management with remotely managed peak

load limiting and detection

Making the Grid Smarter

At Echelon, we believe the smart grid is an energy network. It includes

not only the electricity distribution infrastructure itself, but everything

that draws power from or contributes power to the grid — such as

appliances in homes, HVAC equipment in buildings, and streetlights in

cities. Our smart metering solution — the NES System — is a critical

part of the smart grid. A flexible, networked infrastructure, it can easily

adapt to changing market and regulatory needs. It can allow new edge

devices beyond the meter, new software-enabled services, and new

payment and pricing models for consumers. Only a system solution to

metering can do this. Only the NES System can do this.

About Echelon

Echelon Corporation is leading the worldwide transfor-

mation of the electricity grid into a smart, communi-

cating energy network — one that connects utilities to

their customers, and creates energy-aware homes and

businesses that react to conditions on the grid.

www.echelon.com

Echelon Corporation

USA

Phone: +1 408 938 5200

1 888 ECHELON

(324 3566)

Fax: +1 408 790 3800

Echelon Asia Pacific

Hong Kong

Phone: 852 2802 3769

Fax: 852 2824 9296

[email protected]

www.echelon.com.cn

Echelon Europe

The Netherlands

Phone: +31 33 450 4070

Fax: +31 33 450 4079

[email protected]

WONG_C

Text Box

Agosto - 2010 Elo & Sodielecsa: Consorcio para atender al sector electrico ecuatoriano.








M-Bus connection.














remotely.



∙ Load profiling




service reporting



and prepayment





and Modbus


fault detection


















About Echelon






www.echelon.com

Echelon Corporation

USA

Phone: +1 408 938 5200

1 888 ECHELON

(324 3566)

Fax: +1 408 790 3800


Hong Kong

Phone: 852 2802 3769

Fax: 852 2824 9296

[email protected]

www.echelon.com.cn

Echelon Europe

The Netherlands

Phone: +31 33 450 4070

Fax: +31 33 450 4079

[email protected]

The NES System: Making the Grid Smarter

The NES System The Networked Energy Services (NES) System is the world’s leading

solution for a utility’s smart metering and AMI needs. As a grid solution, it’s

designed to meet today’s smart metering needs and support tomorrow’s

service demands. Built on the success of the world’s first and largest AMI

project (30 million homes), the NES System has changed the global land-

scape for smart metering. With the NES System, smart metering and AMI

systems are no longer focusing on the meter, but on an energy network for

a smarter grid.

Benefits of the NES System∙ Maximizes grid intelligence while minimizing operating costs

by embedding communications and monitoring directly into the

electricity grid.

∙ Creates an open environment for competitive services to adapt,

modify, and extend their energy and metering services, using market-

leading software, hardware, and service providers.

∙ Eliminates risk by freeing a utility to focus on its primary network

asset — the electricity grid — by leveraging established, IP-based

backhaul communications providers regardless of technology.

∙ Delivers certainty that the system will perform to customers’ and

stakeholders’ expectations through a history of reliability, performance,

and cost savings provided to tens of millions of homes.

More Than a MeterThe NES System is a software-driven smart grid solution that incorpo-

rates smart meters, sophisticated grid connectors or concentrators,

and system software. Together, these components meet the needs of

the smart metering and AMI markets from the perspective of the grid,

not just the meter. Unlike a meshed RF solution that uses an add-on

communications card bolted to a meter, the NES System resides in

the electricity wires, converting a utility’s existing metering system into

a smart energy network. This allows the system to provide grid intelli-

gence — about the quality of the electricity, the efficiency of its delivery,

and even the health of other assets on the wire.

The NES System’s

underlying power

line signaling and

communications

technology drives the

world’s largest AMI system

(over 30 million electricity

meters), reducing the

utility’s operating costs by

500 million euros a year.

Over 1.5 million more

NES meters have shipped

throughout the world —

an order of magnitude

more than any meshed RF

metering solution.

Proven Adoption

Proven Reliability

Swedish utility E.ON has

seen a 50% drop in meter-

related customer service

calls since deploying its

NES-based AMI solution.

Vattenfall AB, which

deployed its NES solution

over two years ago, is

able to read 99.7% of its

600,000 NES meters every

day and 100% of them

within 48 hours.

Deployments show that

a lack of communication

with an NES meter is

usually caused by a failure

elsewhere in the transmis-

sion and distribution grid

rather than by any part of

the NES System.

Built to GrowResidential demand response, incentive pricing, prepay service,

alternative energy buy-back plans, and consumer-to-consumer energy

commerce will all be future options for utilities. But utilities that have

already deployed meshed RF grid solutions won’t be able to add these

options, since RF relies on proprietary communications technology.

The NES System imposes no such limits. To ensure maximum

flexibility for future upgrades and expansion, the system is based

on four open, international networking standards: ISO/IEC14908.2 for

power line signaling, ISO/IEC14908.1 for the communications protocol,

IP for the WAN backhaul, and SOAP/XML (Web services) for the system

software API.

∙ IP-based WANs easily integrate with the NES System regardless

of type, from WiMAX to GPRS modem to BPL.

∙ Extensions to the NES System beyond the meter use emerging

RF standards like ZigBee or established power line communications

standards like Echelon’s LONWORKS® platform.

∙ The NES System ensures that a utility can provide HAN and, through

the utility enterprise, use existing and emerging hardware and software

standards such as ZigBee.

∙ The SOA system software can be used by any IT services company

for fast enterprise application development.

System SoftwareNES System Software makes integrating with new and existing

enterprise applications via IT standards fast and easy. This

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) software has been proven

in numerous utility deployments.

System ManagementThe NES Element Manager is the Web-based network

manager for the NES System. A real-time visual dashboard,

it speeds system installation and

provides summary and detailed

views of system health and status

to streamline operations and main-

tenance. The easy-to-use interface

lets system administrators config-

ure and manage a single meter or

millions of meters, making it ideal

for both pilot installations and full-

scale system deployments.

The Element Manager integrates

seamlessly with existing NES

systems and is transparent to

other applications. It manages

the full lifecycle of NES meters

and data concentrators through

the following features:

∙ Installation ∙ Maintenance

∙ Meter-to-data assignment ∙ Configuration

∙ Performance monitoring ∙ System-level diagnostics

Components of the NES SystemThe three components of the NES System — smart meters,

concentrators, and system software — are designed to lever-

age each other to increase the overall power of the system,

balance the intelligence of the system at the points where

value is highest, and provide the highest level of reliability

and performance with the lowest cost of ownership.

Smart MetersNES smart meters meet the future

market and regulatory needs of a

utility by incorporating a rich set

of features including prepay, multi-

tariff abilities, remote updates,

remote connect and reconnect,

tamper and outage detection,

hardware extensibility, direct relay

control, software-settable service

levels, and load factor monitoring.

Meters can be updated with new

pricing, quality of service, energy

management, and monitoring and

control services even after they’ve

been fully deployed.

Data ConcentratorsThese intelligent infrastructure

devices let a utility leverage its NES System solution beyond

AMI or smart metering. The concentrators provide a power

line mesh to ensure 100% meter communications, isolate

and pinpoint outage and other service issues, and minimize

wide-area communications costs. They communicate with

System Software located at a utility’s service center over

any IP-based backhaul.

The NES System is a software-driven smart grid

solution that incorporates smart meters, data

concentrators, and system software.









a smarter grid.



electricity grid.




















The NES System’s

underlying power

line signaling and

communications












metering solution.

Proven Adoption

Proven Reliability












within 48 hours.








the NES System.











software API.





































































Making the grid SMarter

The existing electricity grid offers key, long-term advantages over add-on meshed RF communications for smart metering, AMI, and smart grid solutions.This white paper summarizes the advantages utilities gain by building their smart grid solutions using the existing, reliable electricity grid. A comparison to meshed RF solutions shows why embedded solutions in the grid offer greater cost savings, fewer risks, and higher performance than other available solutions. Leveraging a key asset already owned and managed by a utility delivers proven reliability and performance, increases grid intelligence, and provides a foundation for open smart grid solutions.

WONG_C

Text Box

ELO & SODIELECSA CONSORCIO PARA ATENDER EL SECTOR ELECTRICO ECUATORIANO

Manage the network You know

Utilities already own and manage a vast network: the electricity grid that delivers power to their customers. Through decades of investment and operations, they’ve become experts at managing their electricity distribution network. As a result, they have extremely reliable networks that reach 100 percent of their customers.

Echelon’s NES System uses the power lines that run between the utility’s low-voltage distribution transformer and the customer’s meter. Unlike the old, slow power line systems designed for rural AMR applications or the expensive broadband power line systems designed for data networking, the NES System is opti-mized for AMI and smart grid applications. The NES meters’ and concentrators’ power line network topology maps exactly to a utility’s electricity supply assets. The system creates a reliable, high-speed neighborhood network among all the meters on a given low-voltage transformer to share a single IP WAN connection. The WAN (backhaul to the central office) may be of any type, as long as it’s IP-based.

Typically, the NES System is deployed by leveraging a com-munity’s existing IP network or using a cellular carrier, such as T-Mobile North America, to provide a backhaul for the data. This complementary architecture of neighborhood networks com-municating over utility-owned electricity wires and an RF-based backhaul lets the domain experts manage their respective system elements: the utility manages its grid and the telco manages its wireless network. As a result, the entire system is less costly to deploy, operate, and maintain. Utilities can deploy smart grid systems incrementally without having to build out any new networking infrastructure.

• Neighborhood meter network. This network, from the trans-former in the neighborhood to the meters in homes, is owned and managed by the utility. Maintaining and operating the network is already a primary focus of the utility, as well as one of its core competencies. The resources and expertise used to maintain the electricity grid itself are all that are needed to maintain the NES meters and smart grid system. In fact, the utility can use the performance data collected by the NES System to help improve grid reliability and reduce the costs of maintaining the low-voltage network.

• IP-based WAN. By using an established technology for the WAN and sharing an existing communications infrastructure, the utility gets more security, more reliability, and better coverage than it would by using a WAN it created itself. For example, a cellular network provider such as T-Mobile operates and maintains a high-bandwidth communications network designed for tens of millions of end points. By using an established WAN provider, the utility can also offload network maintenance, management, and development costs to the provider.

Conversely, utilities that employ proprietary meshed RF net-works to reach their meters are faced with a new system with additional costs and risks. It’s a potentially quirky management and maintenance endeavor that creates significant unknowns:

• No evidence of long-term scalability.• No field proof that it can meet utility reliability standards.• Unknown performance and maintenance costs over decades

of use, especially with regard to changing environmental conditions such as inclement weather, tree growth, home remodeling, and neighborhood construction.

The NES advanced metering infrastructure consists of a family of highly integrated, advanced electronic electricity meters accessed via a Web services based network oper-ating system over an IP networking infrastructure.

2

eStabliShed PerforMance, reliabilitY, and ScalabilitY

Many utilities have experience with power line carrier-based metering systems. These systems fall into one of two technology camps, neither of which is well suited to today’s smart grid.

The early-technology power line systems (lumped together as PLC) are limited-function solutions that communicate over long distances, through transformers, all the way from an electricity meter to a substation. In order to accomplish this, the connec-tion speed is extremely slow — so slow, in fact, that anything resembling AMI services is impossible.

Broadband over power line (BPL) systems are almost the exact opposite: They are hugely expensive with unlimited (at least as far as metering applications are concerned) bandwidth at every meter. However, along with the high bandwidth come high op-erating expenses, very high initial capital and installation costs, and lower reliability. Most, if not all, BPL-based metering sys-tems are no longer moving forward for these and other reasons.

Given their experience with PLC, some utilities feel they have no choice but to use meshed RF solutions for their smart metering pilot projects. They’ve made this decision despite the technol-ogy’s unproven reliability and scalability. And they’ve made this decision despite the extra cost and complexity that operating and maintaining a proprietary communications network would entail — an expense on top of operating their own electricity network.

However, a lot has changed in power line technology.

Distribution Line Carrier/Power Line NetworksThe latest generation of PL technology is vastly superior to early-technology PLC — so much so that it would be more accurate to refer to it as distribution line carrier (DLC). And power line (PL) technology still holds a dramatic edge over RF solutions because it embeds communications and intelligence directly into the electricity grid. The key advances in these types of PL-based systems are the following:

• Power lines are used for communications only from the low-voltage power distribution transformer to the meter. This effectively creates a meshed neighborhood meter network for every transformer.

• Bandwidth is measured in kilobits — literally many thousands of times greater per meter than early-technology PLC.

• Because the technology resides at the neighborhood meter network and offers high bandwidth, it provides utilities with all the bandwidth necessary for AMI and smart grid applications for the future.

• The power line communication technology itself has already proven to be reliable, economical, and scalable in tens of millions meters, smart appliances, and smart homes.

• The backhaul network uses the domain expertise of existing IP-based carrier networks.

• Using the power grid eliminates the need for an additional proprietary wireless communications network with additional long-term maintenance and management needs.

Radio Frequency NetworksEarly-generation RF solutions for utilities were not networks, but point-to-point transmissions between a single meter and a single handheld receiver or drive-by vehicle. Later generations featured more sophisticated paging technology that allowed utilities to poll meter reads from customers’ homes. These early generations were neither scalable nor reliable; the reliability of a meter read was only about 80 percent on a day-to-day basis.

Today’s latest-generation RF networks are called meshed RF. Since these solutions are just being deployed — none have been in wide-scale operation for an extended period of time — they are unproven under real-world conditions. It’s unknown, for example, how long-term environmental changes such as tree growth, new construction, or dramatic increases in consumer RF devices (such as Wi-Fi-enabled smart phones) will affect meshed RF performance, capital expenditures, or operating costs. There is no proof yet that meshed RF networks can main-tain their test-bench performance estimates under real-world conditions over the long haul. And there is no proof that RF networks can be easily restored and reconnected after a power outage.

Conversely, there is evidence from other RF systems that constant expense is required to maintain reliable performance. Cellular providers are constantly adding infrastructure to maintain performance in the face of changing environmental conditions. In our personal lives, many of us have experienced RF systems that degrade over time as more and more devices around us clutter the airwaves.

The Reliability and Scalability of the NES System and Its TechnologyThe NES System, with its DLC neighborhood meter network, is the most proven, reliable, and scalable of any smart grid solution available today:

• Over 30 million electricity meters using the underlying Echelon power line communications technology are in operation today.

• Over 1.5 million more NES meters are operating in homes throughout the world and in harsh communications environ-ments, successfully operating for multiple years.

• Because it uses the low-voltage network for communications, the NES System detects individual meter outages as well as problems with the electricity grid itself.

• The Swedish utility E.ON has seen a 50-percent drop in meter-related customer service calls since deploying its NES-based AMI solution.

• The Swedish utility Vattenfall has been able to read 99.7 percent of its 600,000 NES meters every day and 100 percent of its meters within 48 hours. The Vattenfall deployment has been operating for over two years. (Generally, the communica-tions problem is not in the power line network but in the public RF network.)

3

eMbedded grid intelligence

The NES System embeds its underlying power line technology into a utility’s core asset: the electricity distribution infrastruc-ture. This gives solutions built on the NES System a level of grid intelligence that cannot be matched by any wireless solution. For example, because meshed RF solutions are physically sepa-rate from electricity lines — a network unto itself — they can’t receive any information about electricity lines or power quality. Their data is limited to only what the meter can provide.

Grid intelligence provided by the NES System includes:

• Line management intelligence. Utilities can better monitor outages, reduce service restoration time, and verify that service has been restored.

• Power quality. Though it’s not yet widely regulated, power quality is an important aspect of the smart grid. The NES System measures and detects events related to voltage surges and sags, over-current conditions, phase changes, long and short outages, and total harmonic distortion. The system can profile these and other parameters such as voltage, current, and power factor at configurable intervals. These are all key indicators of the health of the distribution network.

• Power line communication statistics. This diagnostic data can alert utilities to potential faults or fatigue in distribution lines.

• Transformer status. Since the NES network is attached to each transformer, it can provide unique information about the transformer, as well as aggregate information into circuit models that identify substation-, capacitor-, and transformer-related issues that would otherwise require explicit moni-toring (through costly additional hardware and networks). In some cases, this information alone almost pays for the system within a few years.

create an oPen Solution

Utilities must be able to make smart grid decisions today that don’t hamper their flexibility tomorrow. Future services like residential demand response, incentive pricing, prepay service, alternative energy buy-back plans, and intelligent electric vehicle charging are very real possibilities.

To ensure the maximum level of flexibility to utilities, Echelon’s NES System is based on open international networking standards:

• ISO/IEC14908.1 for the communications protocol.• IP for the WAN backhaul.• SOAP/XML (Web services) for the system software API.The signaling technology underlying the NES System is widely de-ployed in numerous applications worldwide, including smart me-tering/AMI, home area networks (HANs), and smart appliances.

The NES System itself is open at the meter, the WAN, and at the system software. This lets utilities modify and evolve their smart metering networks to keep pace with new market oppor-tunities and changing regulatory requirements.

Created as a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), NES System Software is designed for rapid integration with new and existing enterprise software applications using IT standards. The NES Web service interface helps ensure competitive software services by multiple suppliers.

NES smart meters have multiple interfaces for extending services within a residence through a combination of hardware and software:

• ZigBee or 6LoWpan radio for RF-based touch panels, wireless smart thermostats, or in-home displays, as well as RF-based HANs.

• Open serial interface for home networks or services.• M-Bus for water and gas meter management (Europe).In addition, the NES System tracks more than 100 meter, con-centrator, and software data points to support the features that are most in demand by utilities around the world. So, even if a utility’s initial plans don’t include all of the advanced features such as prepay, load profiling, power-quality measurement, residential demand response, remote disconnection and recon-nect, and net metering, they can be added to a utility’s smart metering system at a later date without changing the meter hardware. And when new features are developed, they can be downloaded as new software into the system from the central office, as has already happened a number of times in the life of NES systems. To use an analogy from the world of telephony, NES provides carrier-grade reliability and an expandable “dial tone” to every customer; over time, the utility can download new features and functions as they are needed and discovered.

4

concluSion

The NES System’s underlying technology helps make the smart grid smarter. Smart metering/AMI solutions built on the NES System are the only truly feature-rich, proven, and future-proof smart grid solutions on the market today. Because the NES System is based on open, international networking standards, an ecosystem of hardware and software suppliers has been developed to support and provide additional products and services to support the needs of every utility — now, and in the future.

The NES System’s wide adoption and deployment proves the reliability and effectiveness of DLC technology in smart grid and smart metering applications. It also establishes a performance threshold that meshed RF solutions have yet to attain. While some utilities may have fallen into meshed RF solutions, these solutions are nonetheless extremely risky, presenting a number of uncontrollable variables related to deployment and opera-tional costs, technology, and business opportunities. The NES System eliminates these risks.

diStribution line carrier over Pl vS. MeShed rf SolutionSNES System DLC PL Communications Meshed RF Network

Reach Each meter acts as a repeater and the signal path is managed automatically by a data concentrator.

Each meter acts as a repeater, but the path cannot always be pre-dicted. This leads to greater unpredictability in delays and reduced bandwidth due to time spent recomputing the mesh. Reducing the number of hops reduces reach and further increases cost.

Signal Propagation

Not affected by concrete, masonry, or other obstructions.

Works better in wide open spaces and in line of sight. RF must contend with tree growth, new construction, and presence of hills and valleys.

Interference Echelon’s proven power line communication is very robust in the presence of most interfering sources.

Interfering sources (such as Wi-Fi, phones, and HAN) could neces-sitate RF mesh reconfigurations that take time to propagate through the mesh, thereby reducing effective data rate.

Per-node Cost Less expensive (less than $5). Could be two or three times as much with software.

Installation Cost

Very low. Utilities already have the installation expertise. No new training or personnel required. Higher. Requires new training, skill, and knowledge.

Network Ownership

Utilities already have a primary task of maintaining and optimizing the electricity grid. No new skills, training, or personnel required.

Unknown performance and reliability compounds the already high risk of maintaining a new network with new tools and personnel.

Cost of Repeaters

Every meter can be a PL repeater. Automatically handles repeating.

A few dedicated repeaters must be installed, powered, and maintained.

Largest Proven Installation

30 million in Italy (DLC) 600,000 in Sweden (the NES System) 260,000 (Gothenburg, Sweden)

Maintenance Automatic topology management in data concentrator automatically handles changes in line conditions.

May have to deal with tree growth and new construction. Network may need periodic power measurements and relocation of repeaters. Mesh network connections, including repeater paths, must be re-established after power outages.

Performance Proven collection of daily reads from millions of meters.

Disturbances can cause mesh reconfigurations and reduce the effective data rate. Scalability has yet to be proven.

© 2009 Echelon. Echelon and the Echelon logo are trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Other trademarks belong to their respective holders.









a smarter grid.



electricity grid.




















The NES System’s

underlying power

line signaling and

communications












metering solution.

Proven Adoption

Proven Reliability












within 48 hours.








the NES System.











software API.












































































M-Bus connection.














remotely.



∙ Load profiling




service reporting



and prepayment





and Modbus


fault detection


















About Echelon






www.echelon.com

Echelon Corporation

USA

Phone: +1 408 938 5200

1 888 ECHELON

(324 3566)

Fax: +1 408 790 3800


Hong Kong

Phone: 852 2802 3769

Fax: 852 2824 9296

[email protected]

www.echelon.com.cn

Echelon Europe

The Netherlands

Phone: +31 33 450 4070

Fax: +31 33 450 4079

[email protected]

ANSI 2S METER

A new standard for smart energy meters

Designed for residential and small commercial energy consumers, the ANSI 2S Meter sets a new standard for revenue-grade smart energy meters. Safe, accurate, and reliable, these MET Labs-certified meters incorporate a full suite of operating features with an integrated, software-controlled disconnect switch, a comprehensive information display, and Echelon’s robust, bidirectional power line signaling technology. Each meter, which is automatically managed by an NES Data Concentrator or an ANSI IP Meter, can also act as a repeater to reach other meters. This lets it create a power line-based meshed network of meters that exactly matches the real topology of a utility’s residential distribution network.

Integrated Disconnect/ Reconnect Switch• Integrated 200A switch can be locally

or remotely controlled.• Supports customer move-in/move-out

management, load limiting, and pre-paid metering.

• Load-side voltage sensing and load monitoring capabilities are included for safe operation of the switch.

Load Profile• Up to 16 channels of remotely configu-

rable load profile data can be captured at programmable intervals ranging from 5 minutes to once a day.

• Load profile storage capacity is a function of the number of channels and the log interval. For example, single-channel, 1-hour data can be retained for 180 days.

Advanced Power Line Communication• Every NES smart meter includes

Echelon’s proven, standards-based, power line communications technology — the world’s most widely deployed signaling technology.

• Every meter includes an automatic repeating function.

• Communicates with an NES data concentrator.

Time-of-use Metering• Remotely configurable time-of-use

metering leading to peak load reduc-tion supports 4 tariff tiers with up to 10 tier switches per day.

• Rich calendar functionality with day schedules for each season, adjustable time zones, and support for daylight savings time.

• Support for changing the calendar through a pending time-of-use calendar.

Demand Metering• Optional demand metering allows

billing based on maximum demand.• Includes support for block or rolling

demand calculations, configurable demand intervals, and logging 2 coincident parameters.

• Supports local or remote demand reset.

Prepay Metering• Energy credit-based prepay functionality

including varying deductions per time-of-use scheduling, configurable emergency credit, and audible low credit alarm.

Power Quality Analysis• Long and short outage detection with

configurable time threshold.

• Voltage sag and swell detection with configurable voltage and duration thresholds.

• THD event detection with measure-ment up to 10th harmonic to reveal unusual conditions.

Tamper Detection• Cover tamper is detected, logged, and

communicated. Cover tamper operates even during a power failure.

• Measurement technology is highly resistant to tamper attempts with DC magnetic fields. However, magnetic tamper can be optionally detected.

• When used together, alarms, measure-ments, and tamper events can detect most fraud and tamper attempts.

Home Area Network• Internal slot to accommodate an

optional ZigBee radio card inside the meter for communication with in-home devices.

Micro-generation Support• Measures forward, reverse, and net

active energy.• Measures kvarh import and export.• Measures 4-quadrant kvarh when

demand metering is included.

FEATURES

Other Standard Features• Event log with circular buffer to store

100 events.• Large-character, auto-scrolling,

8-digit LCD display.• Programmable display list with

adjustable scroll rate.• ANSI C12.18-compliant optical port for

use with NES Provisioning Tool.• Test mode to verify accuracy without

affecting energy registers.• Optional replaceable external battery

with internal carryover.

SPECIFICATIONS

CertificationsANSI C12.1-2008 (code for electricity metering); ANSI C12.18-2006 (protocol specification for ANSI Type 2 optical port); ANSI C12.19-1997 (utility end device data tables); ANSI C12.20-2002 (accuracy classes); ANSI C12.10-2004 (physical aspects of watt-hour meters - safety standard).

AccuracyANSI C 12.20 Class 0.5

Temperature, Specified Operating Range-40° to +85° C; display fully operational from -25° to +60° C

Temperature, Limit Range for Storage and Transport-40° to +85° C

Humidity<=95% RH; non-condensing.

TimingReal-time clock accurate to +/- 0.5 seconds per day.

Nominal Voltage Form 2S, 240 VAC, range is -20% to +15%.

Frequency60 Hz +/- 5%

Service TypesForm 2S: 1-phase, 3-wire.

CurrentCL200, TA 30A

Load Disconnect Switch200A ; 5,000 operations at full load, PF = 1.0. Remote disconnect and enable, local re-connect via push button; remote reconnect; safe operation with load-side voltage sensing and load-sensing.

Power ConsumptionVoltage circuit: < 2W, < 5VA Current circuit at TA: <1VA

Starting Current20 mA

Units MeasuredkW forward, reverse; kWh forward, reverse, forward + reverse, forward - reverse; kvar import, export; kvarh import, export; RMS voltage; RMS current; power factor; frequency; rolling and block demand for energy sources (optional); kvarh per quadrant (with demand metering option).

Power Quality AnalysisSag; swell; number of over-current occurrences; number of short power outages; number of long power outages; duration and time of the last 10 long power outages; maximum and minimum frequency; phase loss; total harmonic distortion.

Time of Use4 tariffs with 10 possible tier switches per day; 4 seasons per perpetual calendar (set by day/month); perpetual holiday calendar for up to 15 holidays per year; perpetual daylight savings changeover; 2 separate holiday day schedules per season; 1 weekday, 1 Saturday, and 1 Sunday day schedule per season.

Data Logging IntervalsUser-selected at 5, 10, 15, 30, 60 minutes, or 1 day.

Verification Output2 pulse-output LEDs representing active and reactive energy.

Optical PortANSI C12.18-2006

Display 8-digit liquid crystal display, 0.4” height; simulated wheel electronic load indicator.

Data CommunicationsA-band power line communication based on ISO 14908 and ANSI CEA 709 with encryption and authentication.

DimensionsANSI 2Smm inches

A 154.43 6.08B 176.53 6.95C 161.04 6.34D 110.00 4.33E 121.60 4.79F 155.35 6.12

Note that these dimensions reflect the length, width and height of the meter while the meter cover is in place.

B

F

DE

C

A

Data SecurityPassword protection for optical communication; authenticated, password-protected transactions and encryption for power line communication.

Data StorageNon-volatile memory.

EnclosureForm 2S meter, ANSI C12.10-2004

Life Expectancy20-year design.

Safety RatingUL 61010-1 (2001)

Specifications subject to change without notice.

OPTIONS

Demand metering including per-quadrant reactive energy measurement; magnetic tamper; surge tabs; 3.6V field-serviceable battery; control relay; KYZ outputs; Multipurpose Expansion Port (powered or unpowered); 2 pulse inputs.

Note: All options other than demand metering (which can be activated in the field) must be ordered and included when the meter is manufactured. Certain option combinations may not be available.

DOCUMENTATION

ANSI 2S Meter User’s Guide 078-0384-01A

ORDERING INFORMATION

PRODUCTANSI 2S Meter

MODEL NUMBER83021-2IXXX

© 2010 Echelon, and the Echelon logo are trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Other trademarks belong to their respective holders. Content subject to change without notice. P/N 003-0470-01B

NES DATA CONCENTRATOR

Neighborhood Area Smart Grid Manager

The NES Data Concentrator manages smart meters and other smart grid devices on a neighborhood area low-voltage power line network.It provides the connectivity infrastructure between these devices and the NES System Software at the utility’s service center.The Data Concentrator automatically:• Discovers smart grid devices.• Creates and optimizes the low-voltage power line

mesh to ensure reliable communications.• Securely configures devices to communicate on

the encrypted ANSI- and EN-standard LONWORKS®

power line network.• Coordinates the bidirectional delivery of device

data, including metering data.• Monitors the health and operation of the devices.

EnclosureRobust; vandal and weather resistant.•

Translucent face cover lets installers • easily see internal modem LEDs for WAN verification and diagnostics. 4 utility-sealable cover screws. •

Easily wall-mountable with three • screw holes. Internal modem bay accepts and • powers standard wired and wireless modems (DC-1000/SL), and includes a weather-tight gland for fitting an antenna or antenna cable (for an external modem antenna).

InstallationDesign lets utility choose the lowest-• cost installation point on the low-voltage network, or where WAN signal strength is best.Remotely upgradable firmware • enables true zero-maintenance installation.It can be installed at any point in • the low-voltage power line network topology, including at the distribution transformer, co-located behind an IEC meter, or beside an ANSI meter. (The Data Concentrator is embedded inside the ANSI IP Meter; thus, a separate device is not needed for this

meter.) Several connection options are available (see Features section.)

WAN CommunicationCommunicates with the NES System • Software using any IP-capable network, whether wired or wireless, public or private, or WAN or LAN, in-cluding analog telephone service.•EIA-232 serial version uses standard • IP Point-to-Point Protocol to connect with the modem.Intelligently compresses data to • reduce WAN bandwidth use.Supports end-to-end data encryption • to secure metering data and ensure customer privacy.Multilayered authentication thwarts • potential cyber attacks.

Neighborhood Network Management

Automatically discovers meters and • other devices at installation, and as the result of dynamic network topology changes.Collects and reports meter data, • including consumption, load profiles, and power quality measurements.Downloads tariff tables and configura-• tion data to devices.

Broadcast capability enables time-• critical services such as demand response and load-shedding.Maintains accurate date and time in • all devices.Monitors and reports theft and tam-• pering, including phase inversion for single phase meters.Sums total daily energy consump-• tion by supervised meters for use in line-tap detection.Detects and reports trouble condi-• tions such as line breaks and device failures.Independently initiates connections • to the NES System Software to report urgent events (configurable).

Options EIA-232 serial port option with • internal modem bay to connect to wired or wireless modems for networks such as GPRS, CDMA, EV-DO, or PSTN. Ethernet option to connect to any • IP-based network on infrastructure such as fiber optic, cable, DSL, private RF mesh, GPRS, EV-DO, LTE, WiMAX®, and metro Wi-Fi®.

FEATURES

SpECiFiCATiONS

Maximum NES Devices Managed1,024 NES electricity meters and 4,096 associated M-Bus devices (Models 78704-001K and 78705-001K), or 5 NES electricity meters and 20 associated M-Bus devices (Model 78704-001V and 78705-001V).

Input Voltage120/240VAC, -10% to +20%, 50/60Hz

Phase CouplingConnections for 3 phases (L1Ø, L2Ø, L3Ø) and Neutral.

Power Consumption5W to 10W typical.

ClockReal-time clock accurate to ±1 minute per month; corrected by NES System Software.

LAN Interface CENELEC A-band power line communication channel.

WAN Interface Standard Hayes-compatible modem or null modem interfacing to an IP-capable network (Model 78704). 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX Ethernet with 2 meter Ethernet cable (Model 78705).

EIA-232C Serial Port Operates at standard baud rates up to 115.2 kbps (DC-1000/SL).

Optical PortIEC 61107 (physical and electrical requirements).

Data SecurityCHAP, MS-CHAP, PAP and 128-bit application-level authentication for WAN; 96-bit authentication on power line network; 128-bit RC4 encryption for WAN and power line communication; strong passwords protect optical communication, with additional brute force attack protection.


EMCEN50065-1:2001, EN55022:1998, EN55024:1998, EN61000-4-2, EN61000-4-3, EN61000-4-4, EN61000-4-5, EN61000-4-6, EN61000-4-8, EN61000-4-11, EN61000-4-12, EN61000-4-13, EN61000-4-16.

Temperature, Specified Operating Range-40° to +70°C.

Humidity25-90% @ 50°C (non-condensing).

Enclosure TypePlastic; tested to IP56.

Enclosure Dimensions 22.2cm L x 16.9cm W x 7.9cm H.

Modem Dimensions11cm x 7cm x 3cm (maximum, DC-1000/SL).

Modem Power Supply14VDC, 3W (maximum, DC-1000/SL).

Antenna ConnectionSupports an external antenna through the upper enclosure gland (DC-1000/SL).

MountingDIN 43857; 3 screw hole mounts for ANSI markets; mounting points for an NES IEC poly phase or single phase meter are included on the face.

Safety RatingsCertified by TÜV, SEMKO, and KEMA-KEUR per EN 60950.

Certified by TÜV per UL 60950 and CSA 60950.

CE Mark.Compliant with European Directive 2002/95/EC on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances (RoHS) in electrical and electronic equipment.

Life Expectancy20-year design.

DOCUMENTATiON

DC-1000/SL and DC-1000/SLE Data Concentrator User’s Guide 078-0370-01A

ORDERiNG iNFORMATiON

DC-1000/SL Data Concentrator 78704-001V (manages up to 5 devices)

DC-1000/SL Data Concentrator 78704-001K (manages up to 1,024 devices)

DC-1000/SLE Data Concentrator 78705-001V (manages up to 5 devices)

DC-1000/SLE Data Concentrator 78705-001K (manages up to 1,024 devices)

Model 78704 includes a pre-assembled and attached power cable, and terminal covers extensions suitable for use if an NES IEC Poly Phase or Single Phase meter is installed on the face of this product. The 78704 model numbers do not include the modem, serial and power cables for the modem, or an antenna. Model 78705 includes a pre-assembled and attached power cable and a captive 2 meter Ethernet cable. Factory provisioned versions as well as customizations of the hardware and software are available. Contact your Echelon sales representative for details.

©2009 Echelon. Echelon and the Echelon logo are trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Other trademarks belong to their respective holders. P/N 003-0468-01

IEC SINGLE PHASE METER

A new standard for smart energy meters

Designed for residential and small commercial energy consumers, the IEC Single Phase Meter sets a new standard for revenue-grade smart energy meters.Safe, accurate, and reliable, the meter incorporates a full suite of operating features with an integrated, soft-ware-controlled disconnect switch, a comprehensive information display, and Echelon’s robust, bidirectional power line signaling technology. Each meter, which is automatically managed by an NES Data Concentrator, can also act as a repeater to reach other meters. This lets it create a power line-based meshed network of meters that exactly matches the real topology of a utility’s low-voltage distribution network.

Integrated Disconnect/ Reconnect Switch•Integrated 100A switch can be locally

or remotely controlled.•Supports customer move-in/move-out

management, load limiting, and pre-paid metering.

Load Profile•Upto16channelsofremotelyconfigu-rableloadprofiledatacanbecapturedat programmable intervals ranging from 5 minutes to once a day.

•Loadprofilestoragecapacityisafunction of the number of channels and the log interval. For example, single-channel, 1-hour data can be retained for 180 days.

Advanced Power Line Communication•Every NES smart meter includes

Echelon’s proven, standards-based, power line communications technology — the world’s most widely deployed signaling technology.

•Every meter includes an automatic repeating function.

•Communicates with an NES Data Concentrator.

Power Quality Analysis•Long and short outage detection with configurabletimethreshold.

•Voltage sag and swell detection withconfigurablevoltageanddurationthresholds.

•THD event detection with analysis up to 10th harmonic to reveal unusual conditions.

Time-of-use Metering•Remotelyconfigurabletime-of-use

metering leading to peak load reduc-tion supports 4 tariff tiers with up to 10 tier switches per day.

•Rich calendar functionality with day schedules for each season, adjustable time zones, and support for daylight savings time.

•Support for changing the calendar through a pending time-of-use calendar.

Demand Metering•Optional demand metering allows

billing based on maximum demand.•Includes support for block or rolling demandcalculations,configurabledemand intervals, and logging 2 coinci-dent parameters.

•Supports local or remote demand reset.Prepay Metering•Energy credit-based prepay functional-

ity including varying deductions per time-of-usescheduling,configurableemergency credit, and audible low credit alarm.

Tamper Detection•Cover tamper is detected, logged, and

communicated. Cover tamper operates even during a power failure.

•Measurement technology is highly resistant to tamper attempts with DC magneticfields.However,magnetictamper can be optionally detected.

•When used together, alarms, measure-ments, and tamper events can detect most fraud and tamper attempts.

Multipurpose Expansion Port (MEP)•Optional MEP lets partners attach

secure hardware extensions to the meter for communication with devices like in-home displays, or gas and water meters.

•Powered MEP option can provide up to 1 Watt of power to external devices.

•Lets utilities expand meter capabilities when needed.

Micro-generation Support•Measures forward, reverse, and net

active energy.•Measures kvarh import and export.•Measures 4-quadrant kvarh when

demand metering is included.

FEATURES

Other Standard Features•MID Class B active power, Class 2

reactive power.•-40°C to +70°C operating

temperature range.•Event log with circular buffer to

store 100 events.•Large-character, auto-scrolling,

eight-digit LCD display.•Two pulse output LEDs to represent

active and reactive energy.•Optical port for use with NES

Provisioning Tool.

SPECIFICATIONS

CertificationsCertifiedto:IEC62052-11[2003];IEC62053-21[2003];IEC62053-23[2003];IEC62052-21[2004];IEC62054-21[2004];IEC61010-1[2001];EN50065-1[2001];EN50470-3[2006].Complieswith:DIN43857;DIN43864;ANSIC12.18[2006](communicationsprotocol);ANSIC12.19[1997](datastructure);IEC62053-31(classAforS0pulseoutput);IEC62056-21[2002](physicalandelectricalrequirementsonly);DINEN13757-2[2002];DINEN13757-3[2002].

AccuracyFor 5A basic current and up to 100A maximum current.

Active:Class1certifiedtoIEC 62053-21,ClassBcertifiedtoEN50470-3(MID).

Reactive:Class2certifiedtoIEC 62053-23.

Temperature, Specified Operating Range-40°to+70°C(3K7),displayfullyoperational from -25° to +60° C

Temperature, Limited Operating Range-40°to+70°C(3K7)

Temperature, Limit Range for Storage and Transport-40°to+70°C(3K7)

Humidity<=95%RH,non-condensing.

TimingReal-time clock accurate per IEC 62052-21 / 62054-21 to +/- 0.5 seconds per day.

Nominal Voltage220V to 240V phase-to-neutral, rangeis-20%to+15%.

Frequency50Hz+/-5%

Service Types1-phase 2-wire.

Connection TypeDirect connection of line and load conductors.

CurrentBasic5A;maximum100A(amperagedepends on local regulatory requirements).

Load Disconnect SwitchWith remote disconnect and enable.

Mechanical life at maximum power,PF =1

5,000 cycles

Maximum switching current

100 A

Maximum overload current

120A 150A(30min.)

Maximum switching voltage

277 V AC

Short circuit < 3mS 3,000AMaximum switching power 27kVAInsulation strength contact to contact coil to contact

4 kV at 50Hz, 1 minute 2 kV 4 kV

Impulse voltage contact to contact coil to contact

1.2 / 50µS to IEC 62052-11> 4 kV > 12 kV

Power ConsumptionVoltagecircuit:<2W; apparentpower<5VA;

CurrentcircuitatImax: < 6.0VA @100A, < 5.0VA @ 80A

Starting Current20 mA

Units MeasuredkWforward,reverse;kWhforward,reverse, forward + reverse, forward -reverse;kvarimport,export;kvarhimport,export;RMSvoltage;RMScurrent;powerfactor;frequency; rolling and block demand for energy sources and per quadrant kvarh (optional).

Power Quality AnalysisSag;swell;numberofover-currentoccurrences;numberofshortpoweroutages;numberoflongpoweroutages;duration and time of the last 10 long poweroutages;maximumandminimumfrequency;phaseloss;totalharmonicdistortion.

Time of Use4 tariffs with 10 possible tier switches perday;4seasonsperperpetualcalendar(setbyday/month);perpetualholiday calendar for up to 15 holidays peryear;perpetualdaylightsavingschangeover;2separateholidaydayschedulesperseason;1weekday, 1 Saturday, and 1 Sunday day schedule per season.

Data Logging IntervalsUser-selectedat5,10,15,20,30, 60 minutes, or 1 day.

Optical PortIEC62056-21[2002](physicalandelectricalrequirements);ANSIC12.18[2006](communicationsprotocol).

Verification Output2 pulse-output LEDs representing kWh andkvarh;signalingat1,000impulsesper kWh or kvarh.

Control Relay (optional)Single-polevoltage-freelatchingrelay;maximumloadratingis250V,5A; fully isolated.

Pulse Output, SO (optional)1 reference and 1 signal terminal per IEC62053-31/DIN43864.

Pulse Count and Tamper (optional)2 pulse input channels. Counting and recording pulses from devices withvoltage-freepulsetransmitters;25-millisecondminimumpulsewidth;pulse input circuits are not designed topowerintelligentexternaldevices;operates with most passive and opto-coupler/transistor interfaces.

M-Bus (optional)Upto4devices;isolated;short-circuitprotection;encryptionsupported;DINEN13757-2andDINEN13757-3compliant.

Power Wiring TerminalsLine,load,2neutral;maximumwiresize:35mmsq.(usedcablesmaynotfit)terminalinsidediameter:9mm.

Data SecurityPassword protection for optical communication;authenticated,password-protected transactions and encryption for power line communication.


EnclosureOutdoor(IP54),insulatingencasedmeterof protective class 2.

MountingDIN43857

Safety RatingsIEC61010-1[2001];CEmarked.

OptionsControlrelay;magnetictamper;pulseinputs;S0output;M-Bus;poweredorun-poweredMEP;demandmetering.(Contactfactoryforvalidoptioncombinations.)

Specifications subject to change without notice.

Dimensions

IEC SPmm inches

A 125.30 4.93B 206.30 8.12C 71.82 2.83D 33.00 1.30E 52.90 2.08F 3.00 0.12G 9.00 0.35H 9.00 0.35I 13.50 0.53J 24.00 0.94K 18.00 0.71L 23.00 0.91M 11.00 0.43N 136.68 5.38O 127.68 5.03P 88.68 3.49Q 18.00 0.71R 103.11 4.06S 106.89 4.21

ORDERING INFORMATION

ProductIEC Single Phase Meter

Model Number83331-1IXXX

GF

I

KL

M H

RS

P

Q

N O

J

B

A

C

DE

© 2010 Echelon, and the Echelon logo are trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries.Othertrademarksbelongtotheirrespectiveholders.Contentsubjecttochangewithoutnotice.P/N003-0464-01B

“With the advent of the smart grid…many utilities will select the technology first and then the meter”

– Smart Meters for Smart Grids,

ABI Research, 2010

Overview

The energy awareness and efficiency capabili-

ties and services of the smart grid are depen-

dent on the cost-effective, reliable and accu-

rate exchange of information and execution of

control transactions between utilities and their

customers. For many utilities, the challenge

ahead lies in the testing and understanding

of how new Advanced Metering Infrastructure

(AMI) technologies can scale to millions of

meters while supporting advanced services

and applications required for an effective smart

grid. The confidence in selecting the right smart

grid solutions is now less about evaluating a

smart meter and more about understanding

how data will be collected and processed reli-

ably, accurately and securely across the smart

grid while scaling to meet the demands of con-

sumers, utilities and regulatory goals.

Purpose

Echelon’s Networked Energy

Services System (NES) is the

world’s leading AMI solution.

The technology and network

architecture that are the foun-

dation of the NES System are

the foundation of the world’s

first, and largest, AMI deploy-

ment reaching 30 million

households. The open, stan-

dards-based NES System is

capable of collecting volumes

of valuable energy meter data

without the cost and complex-

ity of other alternatives in the

market. To prove this, Echelon

commissioned the Tolly Group — a leading provider of third party

validation of IT products and services — to test the performance,

reliability, accuracy, redundancy and scalability of the NES solu-

tion using a real-world smart grid use case scenario. Doing so

better reflects what utilities require to successfully deploy and

operate the smart grid and what they will likely need in the future

as the smart grid and associated services mature.

Key Findings

The tests substantiate that the Echelon NES System, when bur-

dened with multiple register reads and demand data per meter

consistent with a high demand smart grid use case scenario, can

scale to a minimum of 5 million meters — equivalent to a single

register read from a population of 80 million meters, every night,

with 100% accuracy.

Specific results show that the NES System can:

• Scale to collect comprehensive daily billing data consisting of

two time-of-use tiers of daily scheduled reads along with four

demand sources and two coincident sources along with four

channels of 15 minute profile data related to grid health and

status such as voltage, current, and other power quality and

network health data from five million meters. This is a scalabil-

ity result equivalent to amount of data from 80 million residen-

tial AMI hourly interval meters in a typical AMI application;

• Collect 24 GB of comprehensive

metering data in less than six

hours, ensuring that detailed data

available at the start of each utility

work day;

• Cost-effectively collect data through

the use of inexpensive, com-

mercially available hardware and

software that utilities have readily

at their disposal; and

• Leverage modern data center de-

sign techniques to provide redun-

dancy and scalability by distributed

services across a number of physi-

cal and/or virtual servers in one or

more co-located or geographically

distributed data centers.

Smart Grid versus Smart Meter

Digital meters capable of providing accurate register reads

each night are not equivalent to a smart grid solution. The Tolly

Group’s testing of the NES System simulates data collection for

services that could include time-of-use pricing, net metering, load

profiling, or pre-pay applied equally across a 5 million meter pop-

ulation, an extreme, high demand use case. The NES System’s

ability to easily achieve such high data throughput demonstrates

an ability to meet utilities’ AMI needs — from smart metering to

smart grid applications.

Conclusion

The data collected in this test exceeds the current data demands

of many utilities and anticipates many of their future needs.

Testing to these demands proves Echelon’s commitment to stay

ahead of the curve and to provide utilities with a financially and

technologically secure smart grid solution.

© 2010 Echelon. Echelon and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries.

#210102February 2010

Commissioned by Echelon Corporation

TESTREPORT

Echelon Networked Energy Services (NES) System Scalability Evaluation

THE BOTTOM LINE

2 T h i s p e r f o r m a n c e w a s validated for both European and American deployment scenarios, and surpasses the data volume and delivery time requirements of utilities

1 The NES system can collect and deliver to an MDMS over 24GB of comprehensive metering data from five million meters in less than six hours

The test was run on readily!available, enterprise!class hardware and software using only published Web service APIs and is fully documented in this report

3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYUtilities deploying Smart Grid and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) projects require rel iable, t imely collection of energy meter data to meet their business goals and regulatory requirements. When the amount of metering data collected daily jumps orders of magnitude beyond a simple automated meter reading (AMR) system multiplied by the millions of meters, a sophisticated system design to handle such large scale daily collection and processing within limited time windows is paramount.

NES System Software, Echelon’s enterpr ise software solution that meets this challenge, was evaluated by Tolly engineers in two d i f ferent s imulated env i ronments : American (typified by low average meter to transformer ratios), and European (with higher and widely varying ratios). In both cases the system included five million meters and a simulated wide area network (WAN) between the meters and the utility operations center.

Tolly engineers confirmed that Echelon’s NES System Software can collect comprehensive smart grid data consisting of two tiers of daily scheduled reads along with four demand sources and two coincident sources, and four 15 minute load profile channels from five million simulated meters across a simulated WAN and deliver that data for processing by a utility’s Meter Data Management System (MDMS) in under six hours. This performance, according to Echelon, easily meets the utility goals and regulatory requirements known for the most demanding utilities and regulatory agencies.

© 2009 TOLLY ENTERPRISES, LLC PAGE 1 OF 7WWW.TOLLY.COM

BackgroundGoals

The scalability testing project focused on building a lab!based environment that could simulate accurately the collection and processing of meter data, proving scalability of the NES system to at l eas t a f i ve m i l l i on mete r deployment.

Architectural Overview

Echelon produces numerous smart electricity meters for the ANSI and IEC markets. These smart meters have start!of!the!art computing and storage capabilities, and furthermore can communicate over industry!standards interfaces to gas, water or heat meters, load control devices and other in!premise smart grid devices. Echelon’s meters collect and store metering data, alerts and alarms and forward them over the low voltage (LV) network to another component in the NES system, the Data Concentrator.

The Data Concentrator manages NES communication on the LV network, and can be incorporated into one meter per transformer (as in the case of the ANSI IP Meter) or can be installed at the transformer or anywhere on the LV network as appropriate (as in the case of the DC!1000/SL Data Concentrator). In either case the Data Concentrator

connects to the utility’s service center using any IP!based WAN infrastructure whether public, private, wired or wireless.

At the utility’s service center another component of the NES system—NES System Software—is installed. The System Software solution manages the operation of the NES system, c o n n e c t s t o t h e W A N t o communicate wi th the Data Concentrators, and processes and forwards metering data to the utility’s MDMS. (See Figure 2.)

System Software is designed for redundancy and scalability, and its serv ices can be dist r ibuted amongst a number of physical and virtual servers in the service center. In the test setup, standard, off!the!shelf NES System Software 4 was used and its functions were distributed among a number of servers, as described later in this report. The final component of the test setup was a PC!based MDMS simulator that pulled the metering data out of the NES system as occurs daily at an actual utility.

Comprehensive Meter Data

In order to prove scalability beyond that normally required by utilities, the simulated data collected from each meter consisted of:

• 2 tiers of daily scheduled reads with demand (4 sources with 2 coincident sources) for a total 1,509 bytes per meter per day, and

• four load profile channels each at a 15 minute interval for a total of 3,716 bytes per meter per day.

The grand total of data per meter per day of 5,225 bytes does not inc lude any protocol or IP overhead, though the Data Concentrator does compress the data before transmission to the data center.

For a test population of five million meters, more than 24GB of actual meter data per day was transferred through the NES system to the MDMS simulator.

Comprehensive Meter Data

According to Echelon, meters stream load profile data to Data Concentrators throughout the day so that at midnight only the daily billing reads and the last block of load profile data need to be co l l ec ted . Typ i ca l l y Sys tem Software is configured to contact Data Concentrators shortly after midnight and at a time when it is likely that the Data Concentrator has all of the daily data prepared. In an actual deployment, the System Software solution is usually configured to first contact Data Concentrators with the fewest m e t e r s a s s i g n e d t o t h e m , communicating through the Data Concentrator population leaving the Data Concentrators with the largest meter counts to the end." The goal being to contact each

Echelon NES Scalability #210102


Data Concentrator only once to collect all of the meter data. Even if all of the data is not available for transfer on that first communication, the Data Concentrator forwards the data that it has and continues to pursue collection of the rest of the data, to be ready for the next connection from System Software.

Utilities often want to collect this data from midnight and be finished by six in the morning, to take a d v a n t a g e o f f a v o r a b l e

communications rates in the middle of the night, as well as to leave the NES system free for customer service operations such a s se r v i ce connec t i on and disconnection, on!demand reads associated with service transfer, and investigation of power quality issues. In certain jurisdictions, the utility is required under regulation to provide metering data to a third party by a certain time, such as eight in the morning.



Scenario

Data Collection Run Time (hh:mm)

Data Processing Run Time (hh:mm)

Meters (Total)Data

Concentrators (Total)

Meter!to!Data Concentrator Distribution

Data Concentrator Collection Time

(average per Data Concentrator in

seconds)

Meter Collections Completed per

Second

American 5:24 5:30 5,000,000 1,000,000 5:1 21 257

European 2:48 5:48 5,000,000 178,722

Varied distribution ranged from 1 to

855 with an average value of

174:1

48 496

NES System Software 4 Scalability: Register Read/Load Profile Collection & Processingas reported by Echelon and validated by Tolly

Note: Though the data collection test was run on a Gigabit Ethernet LAN, the Data Concentrator Simulator simulated WAN latency by inserting random delays between 250 and 750 ms into each communication. Delivery of processed data to the MDMS simulator began as soon as the first Data Concentrators were read and overlapped the data collection process.

Figure 1Source: Tolly, October 2009

Tested October

2009

Echelon, Inc.

Networked Energy System

System Scalability

A PC!based Data Concentrator simulator was used for the up to one million Data Concentrators needed for this evaluation. The simulated Data Concentrators were a s s u m e d t o h a v e a l r e a d y completed communication with their assigned meters and have that data ready to be delivered upstream for processing, a valid assumption based upon years of successful deployments.

The NES system is designed to be a temporary data storage system, with data passed to the utility’s MDMS and then deleted from the NES system. Utilities can leave delivered data in the NES system for one day or for months; the decision is guided by the amount of disk space available to the System Software solution and the data redundancy needs of the utility.

In the test for the American test scenario, each of the one million simulated Data Concentrators was configured to deliver simulated data for five meters.

In the European test scenario, based on an actual deployment, each of the 178,722 simulated Data Concentrators reported data from a varying number of meters each:

• 103,816 of the Data Concentrators had between 1 and 10 meters assigned, for a total of 569,733 meters.

• 50,598 of the Data Concentrators had between 11 and 50 meters assigned, for a total of 1,155,158 meters.


• 6,221 of the Data Concentrators had between 101 and 200 meters assigned, for a total of 877,713 meters.


Test Setup & Methodology Data Center Infrastructure

The data center process ing environment was built entirely using commercial, off!the!shelf hardware and software. (See Figure 3.)

The Storage Area Network (SAN) consisted of one Dell PowerVault MD3000i SAN Array connected with two PowerVault MD1000 disk enclosures. These three PowerVault enclosures contained a total of 45 400GB 10K RPM Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives and provided 18TB of raw storage. There were four iSCSI connections to the network, and the drives were arranged into four RAID 10 arrays as follows:

• 20 disks for the NES Core database

• 8 disks for the NES Core log

• 6 disks for the NES Distribution database

• 6 disks for the NES Distribution log

Five drives were available as spares.

Server hardware consisted of six Dell PowerEdge 2950 servers equipped with dual quad!core 3GHz Xeon processors, each with 32 GB RAM (64GB for the SQL database server), three 300GB 15K RPM SAS drives configured as RAID 0, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports (two built!in with two additional quad port expansion cards).

A Barracuda Load Balancer 240 was placed in front of the System Software Core servers (described later).

The SAN, Barracuda load balancer and the other five servers were connected using CAT6 Ethernet cabling to two fiber!connected, stacked HP ProCurve 2810!48G switches. The System Software Core server and Barracuda load balancer ran at 100Mbps; all other connections ran at 1000Mbps. All 10 Ethernet ports on each of the other five servers were connected to the switch.



Database

The SQL Database Server ran Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (64!bit) on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (64!bit). The other five

servers ran Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (64!bit).

VMware Server 2 was used on the System Software Core server to host three virtual machines (VMs) each running Microsoft Windows

Server 2008 Datacenter (64!bit) and the NES System Software 4 Core. Each of the virtual machines was configured to use two processors and 3GB RAM.



Source: Tolly, October 2009 Figure 3

Physical Test Bed Topology

Source: Tolly, October 2009 Figure 2

Logical Test Bed Topology

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System Software Engine

VMware Server 2 was used on the System Software Engine server to host eight VMs each running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (64!bit) and various NES System Software 4 Engine services." One VM was configured to run the following System Software engines:" Always On IP Adapter Engine (with 75 threads of execution), Archive Engine, Event Engine, Global Task Manager, Local Task Manager, Schedule Controller Engine, Schedule Processor Engine, and the Task Timeout Engine." Three additional VMs were configured to run the Always On IP Adapter Engine (with 75 threads of execution), Archive Engine, Event Engine, Local Task Manager, Schedule Processor Engine, and the Task Timeout Engine." The r e m a i n i n g f o u r V M s w e r e configured to run the Archive Engine, Event Engine, Local Task Manager, Schedule Processor Engine, and the Task Timeout Engine." Each of the virtual machines was configured to use one processor and 3GB RAM.

The Data Concentrator Adapter Server ran the NES System Software 4 Data Concentrator Adapter and was configured to support up to 300 simultaneous c o n n e c t i o n s w i t h D a t a Concentrators.

The final two servers hosted the Data Concentrator Simulator and the MDMS Simulator. The Data

Concentrator Simulator is a custom application that emulated physical Data Concentrators and meters, allowing engineers to create specific scenarios varying the distribution of meters per Data Concentrator as described above. To emulate the delays encountered in real!world WANs, the Data Concentrator Simulator application added a random latency of between 250 and 750 ms to every communica t ion . The MDMS Simulator used the efficient batch processing APIs available in System Software 4, and was configured to pull meter data from the solution on each of the 60 threads of execution.

Scalability and Fault Tolerance

The System Software solution is built for scalability and fault tolerance." In an actual utility data center deployment a utility can increase the redundancy without any performance penalties by, for instance, having multiple physical Data Concentrator Adapter servers behind another load balancer, and hosting the System Software Core and Engine VMs on at least two physical servers each. For both tests, Echelon engineers first configured the System Software s o l u t i o n w i t h t h e D a t a Concentrator communication schedule. This operation was not taken into account when reporting the data, as it was a one!time configuration step, and was

repeated solely for the purpose of this testing.

Once the scheduling was complete, e n g i n e e r s s t a r t e d t h e communication portion of the tests, monitored progress through an API developed for its specific purpose, and all results obtained were done so using this API, SQL queries, and the Windows PerfMon utility.

Validation Environment

To verify the communication and results processing operation from end to end, Tolly engineers set up a small scale test environment consisting of five virtual meters and one Data Concentrator, altering the values of random variables on the meters. The System Software solution was then instructed to communicate with the Data Concentrator, upload the meter data, and deliver the results to the MDMS Simulator. Following the communication and processing, engineers queried the values stored in the MDMS Simulator and verified the new, changed values were present.





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About Echelon…Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) is leading the worldwide transformation of the electricity grid into a smart, communicating energy network, connecting utilities to their customers, enabling networking of everyday devices, and providing customers with energy aware homes and businesses that react to conditions on the grid.

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Documents

The NES Smart Metering System