A Web based tool for telemetering and billing in high voltage power utilities

Abstract

The power sector all over the world has of recent embarked on a major restructuring excercise leading to the development of a wholesale electricity market. The strategy has resulted into the splitting of the dominant government owned integrated electricity utilities into three major entities. Generation, Transmission and Distribution. The split introduced competition in the power sector that calls for strict metering and billing to be able to acurately account for energy dispatched, lost or consumed. Therefore in this information era, the meter coupled with information technology infrastructure and techniques, play a central role in the survival of a power utility. However, despite the rapid changes in the sector, research indicates that utilities especially those dealing with high voltages are still metering and billing manually. This has led to inaccuracy, high operational costs and unnecesary delays. This study has revealed that a web based telemetering and billing system scores highly as a key option to be considered for alleviation of the above problems. Findings indicate that given the currently available telecommunication infrastructure that includes power line communication, optic fiber and microwave, the new system shall go a long way in shifting the high voltage utilities’ focus from telecommunication and information technology for power dispatch and control only, but also include metering and billing as one of the priorities. However, it must be emphasized that the success of the system is determined by the reliability and quality of the communication channel.