Unlocking Real-time Visibility and Situational Awareness

Introduction

An electric meter was originally designed to provide utilities with a simple number—the amount of electric current that flowed through the meter each month. The first significant technological evolution came with the rise of first-generation smart meters and the transition from analog devices to basic digital technologies. With the development of more sophisticated hardware and the miniaturization of computing power, “second-generation” smart meters have leapfrogged traditional definitions and now encompass connected networks of intelligent edge-computing devices, fully equipped with onboard sensors, computers, and communications capabilities. Furthermore, these devices can now measure and monitor the waveform in addition to energy, current, and voltage, and capture these measurements at sub-second intervals. These flagship functionalities should not overshadow one of the more overlooked capabilities— location awareness.

However, there is still a fair degree of technological differentiation throughout the space, as highlighted in Figure 1-1. For the purposes of this white paper, second-generation AMI constitutes these baseline enhancements, while the term next-generation AMI (Next-Gen) is reserved for the continuous sampling of ultrahigh resolution data (at a minimum of 15 kHz) across all smart meters, significant local processing, and real- time networking functionalities—requirements that some devices labeled as next-generation AMI meet to varying degrees. These innovations aim to align the energy industry with other verticals in enabling real- time experiences to meet modern-day expectations.

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