SMART Gas Metering Practices: New Technologies and Future

Trends

Ravi Kant, AGM (O&M)

Current Gas Metering Solutions

Gas Flow Measurement

Mass Measurement

Coriolis mass Flow Meter

Volume Measurement

Positive Displacement

Meter

Diaphragm Flow Meters

RPD meters

Inferential Meters

Turbine Flow meters

Ultra Sonic Meters

New Trends and Advancements

• Automatic Meter ReadingTrends

• Smart Pre-paid Gas MeteringAdvancements

• Smart Thermal Gas meters

• Ultrasonic Domestic & Industrial metersAdvanced gas

metering

Automatic Meter Reading

There is a requirement for

centralized online monitoring system for gas supplied to

domestic customers for

timely and accurate billing.

Benefits of AMR

• Timely reading collection.

• No manual reading collection ,hence Elimination of human error in meter reading.

• Up-to-date consumption data for the detailed analysis and exact billing

• Interfacing with SAP for invoicing purpose.

Concentrator

InsideMeter Interface

Unit

Automatic Meter Reading System Domestic consumers

Fixed Solution

• Meter Interface Units are attached to gas meters to capture meter readings and transmit it over RF free band to a data concentrator.

• Data concentrators relay data to server wirelessly over GPRS/4G/GSM/LoRa

• Data from the server may be integrated to SAP for billing purpose.

Automatic Meter Reading System Domestic consumers

Walk by/ Drive By solution

• Meter Interface Units are attached to existing gas meters to capture meter readings and transmit it over RF free band or LoRa Rx to a data collector which in turn communicates with Android/IOS device over blue tooth.

• Data collector device and Android device are carried by a person and he walks/ drives through the designated area and captures the readings depending upon the line of sight

• Data to server is relayed wirelessly over GPRS/GSM/3G/4G/LoRa

Automatic Meter Reading System Industrial & Commercial Segment

Meter Interface Units with modem

• Meter Interface Units with modem are attached to gas meters or EVC or Flow computers to capture readings and transmit it over through GSM/GPRS/4G/LoRa to Server on daily basis

• Hourly data transferred to server on daily basis

• Data from the server may be integrated to SAP for billing purpose.

The main advantages of AMR & Challenge IGL faced After Automatic Meter Reading

Automatic Meter reading has provided solutions to

• Monitoring and measuring the consumption of gas per meter

• Timely reading collection.

• No manual reading collection ,hence Elimination of human error in meter reading.

• Up-to-date consumption data for the detailed analysis and exact billing

• Locked premises

• Estimated/wrong billing

• Reversal of bills

Challenge IGL faced After Automatic Meter Reading

• Defaulter Customers, Customers those who are not paying bills on time

• Manpower requirement of new GA’s for billing

SMART PRE PAID GAS METERING

A smart gas meter not only measures gas flow but use wireless communication to

connect to local or wide area networks allowing

infrastructure maintenance, remote location monitoring, automatic billing and have

valve to cut-off in case of low-credit.

Display and Alarm

Remote meter

reading

Remotecontrol valve

Infrared calibration AMR unit

Power monitoring

Gas Accumulation and Freezing

Smart Gas meters – How it works !

Meters to establish

connection with Cloud Server everyday at

scheduled time

Cloud server to gather required

information (usage and tamper) from connected meters

Check the Available credit limit from IGL Server against

consumed volume for each end

consumer

Check whether available

credit limit < 10%

No

Yes

Cloud server to send SMS to registered

consumer’s mobile number

about low credit limit

Has Consumer recharged

his account?

IGL payment gateway to

process payment information and

send details to IGL server

YesHas credit

limit exhausted

?

No

No

Shut off Gas Meter Valve

Yes

Operator will visit site to reset the valve manually

with valid code if payment credited

Smart Gas meters – How it works !Flow Diagram

NFC BASED PRE PAID METER

The main advantages & challenges of NFC based prepaid Meter

Card is the accounting method.

The capacity to store data/gas consumption in card is of180 days.

The data stored is of each day gas consumption

Kiosk is the communication point of Card.

Kiosk required at range of 1km for every 1000 meters.

Not feasible for scattered installation

Smart Gas meters – Challenges

However, smart gas metering is quite different from smart electricity metering: while electricity

meters are easily powered from the main line, and can rely on an existing electric network

Smart gas meters have more constraints, since they have to deal with gas security risks, necessitating

reliance on battery powered and wireless infrastructure

Smart Meter Technology Future Plans

When ultrasound is transmitted between

two transducers, the speed at which the

sound travels through the fluid (natural

gas ) is accelerated slightly by the

velocity of the fluid in the pipe. When

ultrasound is transmitted in the opposite

direction the flow of the liquid causes the

transmitted sound to decelerate. The

subsequent since the velocity v of the fluid

is likely to be less than the velocity C of

sound in the fluid time difference

Q = Volumetric Flow

V = Gas Velocity

S : Cross section Area

K : Gas coefficient

L :path length through the fluid

θ : the relative angle between the

transmitted ultrasonic beam and the fluid

Flow

Domestic Ultra Sonic Meter Operating Principle

Thermal Mass Flow Meter Operating Principle

Gas Flow

Measurement

Thermal Mass Flow Meter Operating Principle

Gas Flow

Measurement

1. Walk By system

2. Data concentrator

3. GSM / GPRS based communication

4. LoRa WAN

5. NB IOT

Communication Technology

Challenges

Inter operability

Communication issues

Cyber Security

Meter data Management

Limited Domestic vendors