Software architecture for smart metering systems with virtual power plant

Abstract

This paper presents a novel architecture for Smart Metering systems which enables their seamless, secure and efficient integration in wider SmartGrid software structures. Smart metering solutions represent one of the fastest evolving areas in the field of power distribution systems. There is an extensive interest of leading software vendors in the field, for development of architectures that can efficiently manage transmission, processing and storing of tremendous amount of data produced by such metering devices deployed at the end-end side. The integration of these systems into existing power system software architectures (outage management, workforce management, etc.) represents a major challenge for research community. In such an environment it is of fundamental importance to adopt standardized data exchange mechanisms. The proposed architecture is conceived as modular and scalable structure so that it can support implementation of novel power distribution concepts as Virtual Power Plants (VPPs). The proposed architecture has been successfully tested and verified in real life operation as one of modules of Smart Metering system named Meter Data Management (MDM) © 2010 IEEE.