Ingenieur Vol 58 April-June 2014 Ingenieur Vol 58 April-June 2014 | Page 21

Figure 4: System Overview of the TNB RMR Project Figure 5: System Overview of TNB AMI/Smart Meter Project Through the use of ICT, significant improvements are being realized in operational efficiency and accurate meter billing. A significant benefit obtained from this project is the ability to reduce non-technical losses by analyzing meter data captured on a daily basis from the LPC meters. Customer service is greatly improved with accurate bills consistently delivered on time and information on energy consumption such a load profiles available on-line. Customer Service Enhancement through Advanced Metering Infrastructure Electric power utilities in Europe, U.S. and Australia have aggressively embarked on implementing Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) or smart meters to meet Government and/or regulatory requirements in line with policies for competitive retail markets, time-of-use tariffs, integration of renewable energy, demand side management, etc. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) consists of smart meters, a communications network and backend IT systems that continuously measures and collects electricity usage through two-way communications to provide various services to customers that allows them to manage their energy consumption. TNB is currently implementing an AMI/smart meter demonstration project for 1,000 ordinary power consumers (OPC) in Melaka and Putrajaya/ Cyberjaya. The system overview of the project is shown graphically in Figure 5. This project, which will be carried out in four stages and is expected to be completed by January 2016. The service that will be delivered for the stages are listed below: Stage 1: Automatic billing. Stage 2: Load profile web portal. Stage 3: Outage notification and load management plug. 19