Smart Meter Data Collection and Automation

Advantages with iGrid T&D

Advantages with iGrid

• All-in-one solu­tions, com­bin­ing time man­age­ment, load curve col­lec­tion, data con­cen­tra­tion, pro­to­col con­ver­sion, real-time data col­lec­tion, trans­fer and storage
• Pro­to­col con­ver­sion to and from DLMS, IEC61850, IEC60870‑5–102, IEC 62056–21 and Mod­bus RTU/TCP
• Seam­less encap­su­la­tion and con­ver­sion for TCP/IP net­works and mul­ti-lay­er communications
• Full inter­op­er­abil­i­ty in any elec­tric facil­i­ty –col­lect data through any pro­to­col and map it to IEC60870, IEC 61850 or DNP3
• High­ly secure, flex­i­ble and scal­able solu­tion, adapt­able to any sys­tem requirements/ net­work topology
• Mathematical/ log­ic based pro­cess­ing to cre­ate new data to report to the con­trol center
• RSTP, HSR and PRP redun­dant net­works
• Sim­ple & user-friend­ly con­fig­u­ra­tion, oper­a­tion and commissioning
• Local, inter­nal data stor­age with high pre­ci­sion time stamp­ing (+ RTC) to pre­vent any data losses
• Inter­nal PLC based on IEC 61131–3, eas­i­ly pro­gram­ma­ble with our free iConf tool

Smart Solutions for Smart Meters

Smart Meter Gateway

Our gate­ways and RTUs can­not only col­lect data from up to 24 meters, but also serve as com­plete com­mu­ni­ca­tion front-end for the entire ener­gy net­work (pow­er plant, BMS, sub­sta­tion etc.) com­bin­ing advanced automa­tion and net­work­ing func­tions with mul­ti­ple con­nec­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties with first or sec­ond lev­el SCADAs and Con­trol Centers.

All of our prod­ucts can col­lect meter­ing data in real-time using any com­mon meter­ing pro­to­col such as IEC60870‑5–102, IEC 62056–21, Mod­bus and DLMS. Pri­or to trans­fer­ring this data, the data can be direct­ly processed by the iGW/iRTU using math­e­mat­i­cal or log­i­cal expres­sions, which can be eas­i­ly defined with the user-friend­ly and free iConf tool. The con­nec­tion to the con­trol cen­ters can be estab­lished through any avail­able com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­work (GPRS, VSAT, analog/digital radio, Eth­er­net, etc.) and run on pro­to­cols such as IEC 60870‑5–101/104, IEC 61850, Mod­bus, MQTT or DNP3.0. We are spe­cial­ly com­mit­ed to advanced solu­tions based on IEC 61850, find out more about about them here. 

We hold longterm rela­tion­ships with major meter­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers, allow­ing us to gain expe­ri­ence with their devices all around the world. Our prod­ucts are designed to col­lect all kinds of meter­ing data as for exam­ple loss cal­cu­la­tions, pow­er qual­i­ty mea­sures and gen­er­a­tion trends, just to name a few. Con­trol and main­te­nance staff can also access the meter by estab­lish­ing a bypass through the gateway.

Load Curve Collection, Processing and Transfer

Smart Meter Gateway, RTU, PLC, Plant Controller — All in One Device

Just like our soft­ware, our ver­sa­tile, high-per­for­mance hard­ware (iRTU & iGW fam­i­lies) can apply the entire iGrid T&D pro­to­col suite and thus com­mu­ni­cate with any device in the pow­er plant plant or the grid-inter­fac­ing sub­sta­tion. Using iGrid T&D hard­ware as plant con­troller and/or sub­sta­tion RTU is in turn the eas­i­est way to main­tain full ven­dor-inde­pen­dence.

Thanks to our long-term expe­ri­ences and R&D activ­i­ties in gen­er­a­tion appli­ca­tions and our pow­er­ful soft­ware com­mu­ni­ca­tion core, we can pro­vide a broad port­fo­lio of solu­tions for ener­gy gen­er­a­tion projects. Our secured and cost-sav­ing hard­ware com­bines mul­ti­ple roles and func­tion­al­i­ties with­in one device:

• Plant Con­troller to con­trol, col­lect and process data from all plant devices, such as invert­ers, track­ers, string box­es, solar arraysm, envi­ron­men­tal sen­sors, pro­tec­tion relays and meters
• Real-time data col­lec­tion and trans­fer, through mul­ti­ple ser­i­al and eth­er­net ports as well as inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal and ana­log I/Os with high pre­ci­sion and reli­able time syn­chro­niza­tion
• Mul­ti-lay­er Pro­to­col Con­vert­er for all desired pro­to­col con­ver­sions accross plant devices, plat­forms and net­work levels
• Pro­gram­ma­ble Log­ic Con­troller (PLC), pro­gram­ma­ble in 5 lan­gauges with IEC 61131–3 using the free iConf tool
• Auto­mat­ic Gen­er­a­tion Con­trol (AGC) and Pow­er Plant Con­trol (PPC) for active mar­ket par­tic­i­paction and grid support
• Smart Meter Gate­way, map­ping meter­ing sig­nals in DLMS, IEC 62056–21, Mod­bus or IEC60870‑5–102 onto upstream pro­to­cols such as DNP3 to con­nect direct­ly to con­trol centers/ mas­ter stations
• Sub­sta­tion Gate­way with advanced IEC 61850 and redun­dan­cy capa­bil­i­ties to con­nect to con­trol cen­ters, Eth­er­net, GPRS and IP net­works, IEDs, plant and sub­sta­tion equip­ment, ser­i­al devices and data bases
• Data Con­cen­tra­tion with our unlim­it­ed smart meter man­age­ment soft­ware or iGW devices, which can col­lect data from up to 24 smart meters at the same time
• Load Curve col­lec­tion, pro­cess­ing and transfer
• Bay Con­troller Unit (BCU)/ Sub­sta­tion RTU, con­trol­ling, col­lect­ing and pro­cess­ing data from all devices that are part of the grid con­nec­tion, sub­sta­tion and pro­tec­tion sys­tem, such as relays, switchgear and transformers

Simple Architecture Using a Smart Meter Gateway

Example with iGWlite

Different Devices for Different Demands

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­cols are not the only fac­tor to con­sid­er when one is going for max­i­mum flex­bil­i­ty and inde­pen­dence. Our prod­ucts can be ordered with a range of com­mu­ni­ca­tion ports and I/Os to serve dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion media. 

For exam­ple, an iRTU can car­ry an embed­ded Eth­er­net switch to con­nect to sev­er­al redun­dant Eth­er­net net­works, sev­er­al ser­i­al ports for ser­i­al IEDs or meters, and a GPRS modem for wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the con­trol center. 

We have devel­oped a broad vari­ety of devices and device fam­i­lies with many con­fig­u­ra­tion options to cost-effec­tive solu­tions for any project requirements.

We can also announce the upcom­ing launch of the iRTU­com­pact, a new com­pact device with inte­grat­ed I/Os for gen­er­a­tion and smart meter­ing applications.

Hav­ing every­thing com­bined in one future-ori­ent­ed device saves a lot of time and mon­ey, whilst remote plant loca­tions, com­plex net­works and even­tu­al changes/replacements stop being a cost­ly threat to your invest­ment. Fur­ther pre­ven­tion against finan­cial loss­es can be pro­vid­ed by redun­dant infra­struc­ture. iRTUs/iGWs can be oper­at­ed in hot-stand­by redun­dan­cy modes and sup­port RSTP/PRP/HSR to pro­tect your net­work from any device fail­ures.  

Fur­ther­more, our gateways/ con­trollers are capa­ble of high pre­ci­sion time-syn­chron­za­tion (<1ms) via PTP or NTP and car­ry inter­nal high-accu­ra­cy Real-Time Clocks (RTC, 1ppm). This allows to record events with a micro-sec­ond time stamp­ing accu­ra­cy, even when con­nec­tion to the time source (mas­ter­clock) is lost, per­mit­ting to trace fail­ures back meticulously.

Our Smart Meter Gateway Software Solutions

The same func­tions can be per­formed with our soft­ware solu­tions, which share their core iGComms with our hard­ware. You can either run our soft­ware as com­mu­ni­ca­tion front-end on your pre­ferred hard­ware device with the unlim­it­ed and scal­able iGW-VM appli­ca­tion or inte­grate it in an exis­tent sys­tem, such as a smart meter man­age­ment or auto­mat­ed meter read­ing system.

The equipped sys­tem (serv­er) will not only be able to man­age data from thou­sands of smart meters, but also func­tion as mul­ti-lay­er net­work gate­way to com­mu­ni­cate through sev­er­al pro­to­cols and VPN, IP, Eth­er­net and ser­i­al net­works, act­ing as a sub­sta­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tion core or gate­way to SCADA sys­tems and con­trol centers

If you devices and data to be visu­al­ized or you need to con­trol entire gen­er­a­tion plants, facil­i­ties or sub­sta­tions, you can also use our iCon­trol SCADA soft­ware. It allows you to both com­mu­ni­cate with Smart Meters and at the same time enjoy all the oth­er func­tions required for a com­fort­able and auto­mat­ed con­trol of elec­tri­cal net­works. iCon­trol SCADA can oper­ate on sev­er­al lev­els, from gate­way to con­trol cen­ter and be deployed in many dif­fer­ent archi­tec­tures, includ­ing redun­dant client-serv­er based schemes. As such, it can serve as a plat­form for all actors involved. It can be accessed through mul­ti­ple clients or via web brows­er, using role-based access con­trol to guar­an­tee a cus­tomized user expe­ri­ence and man­age per­mis­sions and responsabilities.

iGW-VM — Main Gateway/Hub 

• Can act as cen­tral gate­way, meter man­age­ment & automa­tion sys­tem, com­mu­ni­cat­ing with thou­sands of meters
• High­ly scal­able and pow­er­ful gate­way soft­ware for any serv­er run­ning on win­dows or linux
• Pro­vides pow­er­ful mul­ti-lay­er pro­to­col con­ver­sion capa­bil­i­ties to your entire network

iGW-VM — Communication front-end

• Equip any meter, gear, con­trol sys­tem, device or PLC with iGrid’s soft­ware core iGComms
• iGrid pro­to­col suite for pow­er­ful mul­ti-lay­er pro­to­col con­ver­sion capabilities
• Pow­er­ful automa­tion func­tions, such as PLC programming

Powerful, Secure and Reliable Communication Technology

We want to keep the oper­a­tion of your pow­er net­work as sim­ple as pos­si­ble with­out renounc­ing advanced func­tion­al­i­ties. For this rea­son, based on our in-field expe­ri­ence, we designed pow­er­ful and flex­i­ble hard­ware for the ener­gy indus­try. Our user-friend­ly hard­ware facil­i­tates smooth imple­men­ta­tions and can be eas­i­ly adjust­ed to your needs with our free & sim­ple iConf tool. 

We are aware of the broad diver­si­ty of com­po­nents a sys­tem con­struc­tor is con­front­ed with. With our solu­tions you no longer need to wor­ry about sys­tem topol­o­gy, com­mu­ni­ca­tion media, com­pat­i­bil­i­ty or net­work inef­fi­cien­cies.

We encour­age to set up open and scal­able com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­work archi­tec­tures, which will allow you to com­fort­ably react to any kind of changes in your plan­t’s net­work and replace third par­ty devices at any giv­en time.

Although our devices are already con­fig­urable and ver­sa­tile by design, we also pro­vide fur­ther prod­uct con­fig­u­ra­tions and tai­lored ser­vices upon request.

Glob­al Com­pli­ance and Interoperability

Thanks to our expe­ri­ences with elec­tri­cal net­works and sub­sta­tions in a vari­ety of indus­tries all around the plan­et, our prod­ucts have been pre­pared for an immense range of high-demand­ing require­ments and stan­dards, guar­an­tee­ing a peace­ful approval process for any project in any coun­try. Our cer­ti­fi­ca­tions range from EMC com­pat­i­bil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­col stan­dards like IEC 61850 to cyber secu­ri­ty means and have been assert­ed by third par­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion bod­ies like DNV GL/ KEMA.

Why Use a Smart Meter Gateway by iGrid T&D? 

Our advanced Smart Meter Gate­ways can han­dle a broad vari­ety of pro­to­cols and archi­tec­tures but also pro­vide numer­ous oth­er tech­no­log­i­cal fea­tures and func­tion­al­i­ties for all kind of appli­ca­tions and requirements.

As a client you can ben­e­fit from a unique­ly flex­i­ble and scal­able all-in-one solu­tion that is easy to use and saves a lot of costs through­out the entire project.

Solution Benefits & Functions