Enabling real-time charging for smart grid infrastructures using in-memory databases

The emerging trend towards smart grids defines new requirements for designing enterprise applications for the energy market. Current solutions were built to process single billing runs as time-consuming batch jobs. Rather than processing some readings per year and household, a constant stream of meter readings has to be processed in context of a smart power grid. Additionally, consumers demand for convenient ways to monitor power consumption while getting real-time charging information on a daily basis. In this paper, we share our experiences of integrating meter readings in an industry-specific enterprise application for utilities to support real-time billing. Our prototype enables customers to track consumptions and to view billing details online. Besides, we discuss new business scenarios enabled by this real-timeliness.