A Unified Solution for Advanced Metering Infrastructure Integration with a Distribution Management System

Recognizing the value of an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), utilities worldwide are deploying millions of smart meters. To better justify AMI investment, researchers have recognized the urgency to utilize the full potential of AMI to improve the quality of distribution management system (DMS) applications. However, the integration of AMI and DMS is a challenge as it entails different communication protocols and requirements for handling various meter information models. In addition, the AMI meter data load generated by millions of smart meters can potentially overwhelm DMS systems. To solve these problems, this paper introduces a unified integration solution that can easily adapt DMS systems to various AMI systems that use different communication protocols and meter data models. Besides caching and delivering meter data back and forth between DMS and AMI systems, the proposed solution architecturally isolates the two systems, minimizes the influence of AMI meter data load on DMS systems and vice versa.