Cost effective solution for Smart Meters

Presently, the implementation of smart meters is a target for governments trying to achieve the objectives of emission reductions, security of energy supply, reducing the carbon footprint of the country, and providing quality service to the end-user. Utilities want to accentuate the installation of smart meters as they foresee better management and efficient usage of energy.

Furthermore, growth in smart grid technologies will give rise to smart meters. Smart meters alone are not useful and need to be installed in conjunction with some type of a communication infrastructure to get the data back to the utility. Smart grid technologies include communication networks, advanced sensors, and monitoring devices, which constitues the foundation for utilities to generate and deliver power, and for consumers to understand and control their electricity consumption.

ANDREA Informatique has been and continues to be in the middle of this huge challenge that the smart metering and smart grid sectors represent. ANDREA Informatique has been working in this area since the very beginning, contributing with its experience to the first European smart metering prototypes, and proposes today a package of products, tools, and services, which enables the creation of reliable and cost-efficient smart equipment.

This package of products, tools, and services includes the DLMS COSEM toolkits (Client and server), THUNDER the G3 PLC full soft solution, the knowledge of most of the European Companions, the generic test tool PHENIX, and much more.

In this context, ANDREA Informatique can naturally adopt any companion to design and implement the target smart meter. This idea is now a reality in the shape of our PEGASUS meter.

 

Pegasus is a comprehensive mono-chip solution for low-cost implementations, which means that the G3 PLC communication modem and the application (Companion) run on the same chip.

ANDREA Informatique is not pretending to be a meter provider, it is not our business. Our main activity is to help our customers to create reliable and cost efficient equipment at the right time to market.

To better support our customers, to propose the tools with the most added value, and to help them find the right choice of the master key elements of a smart meter, we propose Pegasus.

Pegasus is a cost effective design using modules used worldwide and that has passed all the required certifications. Below you find the list of its’ main features:

• Integration of ANDREA’s DLMS COSEM server toolkit. This kit is complying with the BOOKS, it is used worldwide and several hundreds of thousands of meters with this kit are now installed on the field and working with success.
• Integration of ANDREA’s Thunder, the full soft G3 PLC solution. Thunder has been certified in CenelecA and FCC bands for ARM micro-controllers but can run on any other. Any companion (functional specifications) can be implemented on top of the DLMS COSEM server tool kit.
• The implementation can be tested with ANDREA’s Phenix generic test tool
• Pegasus is a mono-chip and cost effective solution.
• Pegasus can run on any micro-controller, presently in ARM and ARC architectures
• Pegasus has been certified by the DLMS COSEM User Association.
• Pegasus has been certified by the G3 PLC Alliance as a product in Cenelec A and FCC bands.
• Pegasus has passed the performance certification in differential and coherent modes.
• ANDREA supports the customer in the process to obtain the certification of the product.

 

 

Pegasus is a mono-chip cost efficient solution with G3 PLC technology.

Pegasus is a turn key design for helping meter providers to get reliable equipment in short delays.

The language used for Pegasus development is C++ optimized to run on several microcontrollers.

To illustrate Pegasus implementation, let’s take the IDIS2 companion to determine the size of the ROM and RAM resources (IDIS2 mandatory objects and THUNDER Cenelec A). You can see the results in the figure below: