Real-time smart metering with reduced communication and bounded error

Real-time smart metering facilitates, for example, balancing load and generation, load prediction, demand response, outage detection, and providing end-user feedback. In this paper, a real-time smart metering approach is proposed that aims to minimize the amount of communication for a given maximum error constraint. The proposed approach is based on the Shewhart change detection test. A local power measurement is transmitted to a central processing point of the grid if it differs more than a predefined threshold from the last transmitted power measurement. The expression for the average time to a new transmission is derived. Simulation results with both simulated and real measurement data are provided to illustrate the tracking performance and the reductions in the communication rate.