Distributed settlements-metering systems for competitive supply of energy

Competitive supply of electricity is fundamentally linked to real time pricing. Therefore linking the real time cost of generation to the real time consumption by a consumer has been the focus of the industry´s IT resources. A new system was needed to enable consumer access to the competitive market. One of the perceived problems to be solved was to use the existing metering equipment. A model, which would estimate real time consumption from a few profiles and subsequently synthesise half hourly data was developed. This estimation process was justified on the basis that statistically, accuracy of the total system would be quite good. The other justification was that it would be a lower cost solution than providing half hourly meters in all homes. Distributed settlement is the logical evolution of real time electronic metering. Today´s metering systems already contain enough processing power to calculate all the constituent parts of the settlement process. The meter measures the quantity of electricity dispensed to the customer. The meter contains the contractual information between supplier and customer in the form of a comprehensive tariff. The only component required to complete the contractual loop is the generation price of kWh for each half hour period. Any number of mechanisms can be utilised to transmit pricing information, but it does not need a revolution in technology to realise this ambition