Smart Gas Metering in Italy Metering, Billing and CRM Europe Artone.pdf · Carmine Artone IT Manager for Operations Famula on-line – IT company owned by Hera Spa Multi-Utility -

Carmine Artone

IT Manager for Operations

Famula on-line – IT company owned by Hera Spa

Multi-Utility - Italy

Smart Gas Metering in Italy

Metering, Billing and CRM Europe

Amsterdam, October 10th, 2012

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Italian Gas Utility Market

Authority Gas Smart Metering directive

Gas Smart Metering Standard & Architectural overview

C&I Gas Metering Overview and Status

Focus on Residential Gas Smart Metering

Hera Smart gas metering – IT point of view

Company Overview

Hera Critical success factors for point to multipoint network

IT a key success factor for Smart Metering

Gas Metering for Hera an Opportunity with Criticalities

Conclusions

Agenda


Energy market liberalized and unbundled, but limited gas customer retailer switch

22+ Million meters with 200+ distributors, most with limited financial resources

One the largest distributor has 1/3 of market , 1/4 are multi utility

M&A, international utilities market entry are modifying the market scenario

Retail competitive offering’s increasingly effective

Distribution concessions renegotiation with likely geographic regrouping ongoing

Acquirente Unico : electricity and gas national utility data exchange hub


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Italian Authority for Electricity and Gas (Directive Gas metering 155/08 & 28/12)

The first AEEG smart gas directive was published in Oct 2008.

AEEG also defined the high level requirements, meter replacement schedule with penalties for non-compliance and customer information as a priority

Electrical Smart metering already deployed, solution needed for Gas only

Authority modified the original directive in 2012


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Standard & Architectural overview

The technical specification created to satisfy the authority directive 155/08 is the UNI/TS 11291 standard


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Requirements : Commercial & Industrial (C & I) meters • Both temperature and pressure compensated measurement

• Hourly consumption curve storage

• Customers can request an additional impulse output to monitor consumption

Status : Commercial & Industrial (C & I) meters

• Ongoing deployment, 1° Phase > G40 almost complete

• Interoperability, Specification Change Management and Security are areas of ongoing improvement

• >G40 Point to Point GPRS solution used for meter to MDM system communication

• Option for G10 and G16 to move to multi point radio

• Option to reduce costs with electronic all in one meter

C&I - No significant strategy or technical changes over the last year


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Focus on Residential Gas Smart Metering - Requirements

Two way end-to-end data transport guaranteed by encryption & authentication Only temperature compensated measurement, pressure not mandatory Daily consumption curve storage

Remote closure of valve, no unattended remote valve opening Solution to be based on open standards eg Wireless protocol Interoperability both for meter and concentrator Electronic display and capability to manage at least 3 reconfigurable tariff bands All software remotely upgradeable System temporal synchronization Security and data privacy high solution priorities Error status and tampering message management Project should allow for innovation during 15 year product life Wireless home display is a low priority today, unlikely to be deployed in early roll out

phases.


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Focus on Residential Gas Smart Metering - Status

Point to Multipoint network (almost) defined - 169 Mhz Wireless M-Bus • 169Mhz radio has greater range, less field hardware expected in Italian context

• 169Mhz radio is an EU radio standard for metering (less risk of radio interference)

• two way technology is still being optimized & tested, larger antennae size and higher component cost vs Zigbee

Next Steps

• Confirm new point to multipoint standard through use in significant pilots with shortly available “integrated” radio hardware

• Verification site availability and network planning optimization tools

• Define & confirm interoperability requirements capability

• Increase stakeholder acceptance through reduction in technical, financial, and legislative risk


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Company Overview




Conclusions

Agenda

Company Overview (1/2)

Famula on-line is the IT company fully owned by Hera taking care of Hera’s IT department and managing Hera’s Enterprise platform and Central Systems

Hera is one of the principle Italian multi-utilities, founded in 2002, that serves 240 city councils operating in the Italian liberalized and unbundled energy market

Hera supplies Energy, Water and Environmental services to a macro area of over 3 million citizens with around 6.600 employees. More than 50% of the shares are owned by the Public sector


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Hera spa - Company Overview (2/2)


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ENVIRONMENTAL

2.8M citizens served

5.1 Mln tons treated 1st IN ITALY

WATER

3.1M citizens supplied

254 Mln m3

2nd IN ITALY

ELECTRICITY

517k customers

10 TWh sold

8th IN ITALY

GAS

1.1Mln customers

3,300 Mln m3 sold

4th IN ITALY

280k electric meters

97% smart-meters

9,200km network

2,400 Mln m3 gas distributed

13,734 km network

Ongoing acquisition of two additional regions (Acegas-Aps)*

141k electricity customers - 1,500km network

270k gas customers - 2,200 km network

260k water customers – 5,000 km network

500k citizen served – 0.4 Mln tons treated

GEOGRAPHIC EXPANSION

* Source: www.gruppohera.it - www.acegas-aps.it

http://www.gruppohera.it/

http://www.acegas-aps.it/



Critical success factors for point to multipoint network


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Variety of different locations and types of technical solutions used to install the

gas meters

Characteristics of the telecommunication technology to be used (transmission

capacity, transmission hierarchy, limitations on component location etc.)

Network planning including the analysis of the number or repeaters and

concentrators necessary to guarantee a good signal coverage

Site identification for low cost, safe & secure installations, site authorization to

install and access to maintain components, availability of 220v electricity supply.

Design the network with a vision for a multi service utility

Hera will leverage the controlled telecommunication provider Acantho spa to

address telecommunication and infrastructure requirements

battery of meters on the property perifery

meters in niche on the property perifery

meters inside the property

It is fundamental to find a telecommunications partner that can provide to the distributor existing infrastructures and managed

services in strategic locations with access to the electrical power


As IT we decided to provide a robust, innovative AMM solution capable of supporting the multi-utility vision of Hera in the long term (10-15 years)

The AMM solution is part of more comprehensive vision to support business in reducing costs by

• allowing better real-time decision making based on validated data

• reduction of billing errors (and resulting claims) as a result of a reduction of the elapse time to obtain validate meter data and a reduction of estimated readings

• switch orders cost reduction

Our vision is to support Metering processes in an integrated end-to-end way from day 1, even before installing the first meter

• Planning of communication network

• Manage meter and installation logistics

• Support with mobile devices the installation process (configuration, keys,..)

• Automatic Meter enrollment on AMM System and technical master data update in the back-end systems and documentation

• Real time ability to remotely repeat and verify work orders, both re-reads and error recovery before generating a field order

• Work Order management integration to solve field maintenance issues

• Error message handling and system/network/meter monitoring

• Manage meter data verification and certification to identify deviation from standard consumption profiles (i.e. broken meters, frauds, ...)

• Integration of certified meter data into the billing system


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Gas Metering for Hera an Opportunity with Challenges


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• Replacement of the existing meters in a few years before the end of it’s useful operational life

• Metrological verification of convertors and above all residential meters

• Methodology technical / administrative to connect concentrators to the electrical 220v supply

• Lack of consolidated technology especially for residential market

• Increased operational costs (gprs data, battery replacement, maintenance of concentrators, etc)

• Critically low tariffs to compensate the distributor for extra costs (early replacement of operation meters & other costs listed

above)

• Creation of a meter reading network that could be used for other metering services (eg water)

• Eventual reuse of the existing Telecommunications infrastructure (i.e. assets controlled by the captive

Telecommunication provider Acantho spa)

• Guarantee the long term safe use of the electronic closure valve

• Modernization of the installed gas meters • Improvement of the gas meter reading data quality • Increase customer satisfaction and gas system credibility due to billing using real data which will result in a reduction of

customer billing complaints and the resulting workload needed to recalculate • Possibility to disconnect the gas supply remotely when the meter is inaccesible

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Company Overview




Conclusions

Agenda

Smart Gas Metering in Italy - Conclusions Level of service increase by better data quality, timely data availability to better support billing and

balancing processes

Balance complexity with the total costs of the deployment and maintenance of the solution: need of careful design and test of the solution to address the significant quantity and variety of installations imposed by the energy authority

Cost increase due to more components in the field: the rollout of smart gas meter will impact greatly the maintenance costs borne by the distributors over the fifteen year product life

Need to partner with telecommunications operators: the network architecture for the data transmission for the residential market needs a know-how and infrastructure capability that is not available internally to gas distributors,

Gas tariffs increase: Italy is going, after the electricity smart metering deployment, again to be a "first mover" in smart gas metering, this will mean a significant investment that must inevitably be recovered

Benefit still uncertain: the greater consumption data availability will benefit the country but it remains uncertain if the same level of benefit experienced in the electrical meter deployment can be replicated in the gas case

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Grazie.

Thanks.

Famula on-line / Hera spa

Direzione Centrale Servizi e Sistemi Informativi

[email protected]

Documents

Smart Gas Metering in Italy Metering, Billing and CRM Europe Artone.pdf · Carmine Artone IT Manager for Operations Famula on-line – IT company owned by Hera Spa Multi-Utility -