Substation Metering Equipment to improve Real-time Monitoring of the LV Network

Today smart meters provide much more than just billing data they provide real-time data and information like alarms are. Smart meters seem to be the best solution for real-time control and monitoring of the LV network that will enable green energy transition with flexibility market.

In Elektro Ljubljana d.d. we established real-time monitoring of the LV network using smart meters. With smart meters that support push communication we detect outages and other alarms

(overvoltage, undervoltage…) in real-time. We provide integration between different information systems so that alarms are send to the SCADA ADMS (HES, SCADA, DMD…).

It is important that smart meters installed on the substations also enable real-time data and alarms that are sent to SCADA ADMS. With substations metering data we can provide realtime calculation of load distribution and technical losses, localization of unmetered consumption or theft, and fault prediction. Furthermore, today smart meters enable edge computing that support real-time analysis directly on substation.

This paper presents a method and an architecture for edge real-time monitoring of LV network supported by metering equipment on LV substation. On distribution level, we perform tests on metering equipment that enables edge computing (analysis directly on selected substations) in selected set of substations. This provides real-time analysis of loads, losses; optimize loads; prevents faults on substation and in the LV network in real-time; supports the flexibility market.

It also reduces the time spent for data analysis and optimises the entire enterprise data flow.

In the future smart meters that enable push communication with edge modules will enable realtime proactive management of LV network. With such kind of metering equipment, we will 1 collect and analyse data in real-time and improve current system for control and monitoring of the LV network. To prevent faults and ensure normal operational conditions alarms from analysis result will be send to the SCADA ADMS. This will enable normal operational conditions on substation and in the LV network due to the green energy transition challenges.