investigations into the lifetime of gas meter batteries in the netherlands

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AMI gas and water • Smart metering in UK • Batteries Smart Energy International

METERING.COM

4 Editorial

4 Current Affairs

12 Association news SWAN – activities in the

water industry

88 Index to Advertisers

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ISSUE - 2 | 2013

SMART ENERGY

38 The European supergrid is inevitable

By Ana Aguado Cornago

42 Smart Grid Alliance for the Americas: Support to rural utilities

By Dan Waddle

46 AES Eletropaulo’s smart grid program By Maria Tereza Moyses Travassos Vellano and Paulo Roberto de

Souza Pimentel

52 Global EV outlook: Assessment of electric vehicle progress

By Electric Vehicles Initiative

56 G.hn powers smart grid evolution By Livia Rosu and John Egan

European supergrid Global EV Alliance Latin America G.hn

Published by:

WorldView

14 Water is your business By Michael Deane

16 Brazil’s path to smart electric grids By André Pepitone da Nóbrega

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AMI & SMARt MEtERInG18 AMI trends and developments in gas and water utilities By Joseph Turgeon

20 Smart gas metering in Europe - an untapped opportunity? By Daniella Muallem

24 Towards meter reading interoperability at American Water By David Hughes

28 Lessons from the island: Smart metering in Great Britain By Richard St Clair

30 Interoperability – top down or bottom up? By Nigel Orchard

68 Global water meter market update: Back to the basics By Nicole Tuggle

PREPAyMEnt58 Prepayment: The energy conservation impact in US By Cindy O’Dwyer

BUSInESS / FInAncE / REGULAtoRy34 Getting ready to roll in Britain – smart procurement strategies By John Peters

70 Understanding declining water sales and utility revenues By Janice A. Beecher and Thomas Chesnutt

72 Developing a heat metering specification. ASTM International Technical Committee E44.25 partners with global metering industry

By Christine DeJong

BILLInG & cUStoMER SERvIcE76 Payment transactions and claims management in the German energy industry:

Deteriorating payment behaviour and increasing influence of smart metering By trend:research

MEtER DAtA66 Considerations in implementing a meter data analytics solution By Mary Rich and Irshad James

MEtER tESt & FIELD SERvIcE82 mSure – a new technique for ensuring stable high accuracy over the lifetime of an

electric meter By JED Hurwitz

coMPonEntS78 Investigations into the lifetime of gas meter batteries in the Netherlands By Horst Reuning and Machiel Joosse

LASt WoRD87 Will any disaster wake America up to its water problem? By Vincent Caprio

CURRENT AFFAIRS CURRENT AFFAIRS CURRENT AFFAIRS CURRENT AFFAIRS CURRENT AFFAIRS CURRENT AFFAIRS CURRENT AFFAIRSCURRENT AFFAIRS

METERING INTERNATIONAL ISSUE - 2 | 20134

Looking towards the utiLity of the future

editoriaL

We make no apologies for once again focussing strongly on water in this issue. While water is obviously a resource with different characteristics to energy, the challenges faced by water utilities – conceptually at least – are very similar to those of their counterparts in energy, such as reducing losses, accurately billing, securing revenue, and building customer relationships – all of which contribute to the making of a more operationally efficient, financially secure and sustainable utility.

These challenges are leading to the increasing deployment of advanced metering infrastructure in water utilities, and with it increasingly moves towards smarter water networks (p. 12, 14, 18, 24).

Another issue that has been attracting much discussion of late is the future of utilities in a scenario where consumers are being encouraged to conserve resources by reducing demand, leading to flat or declining sales and consequently utility revenues (p.70). Undoubtedly greater operational efficiencies are able to offset at least part of such losses but water utilities may also need to look to developing alternative sources of revenue, such as alternative end uses of water or the offer of efficiency services or equipment.

Similar trends are being observed for energy utilities and a new study from Ernst & Young1, released just as this issue was going to press, observes an emergence of ancillary services markets – for example home energy management services, secure home services, mobility services – and finds that this is one of the key growth opportunities for power companies. According to this report, success will depend on learning lessons from other sectors such as banking and telecoms, as well as on the acquisition of the necessary competencies and skills.

Without doubt the utility of the future will be different to that of today, but those that are successful will have “a robust forward view,” according to the Ernst & Young report. Such companies are more outward looking and market focussed, respond smartly to change, understand what drives costs and value, and engage closely with stakeholders.

Jonathan Spencer [email protected]. Business Pulse. Exploring dual perspectives on the top 10 risks and opportunities in 2013 and beyond. Ernst & Young 2013.

renewabLe energy, aMi top sMart grid driver and technoLogy gLobaLLy

Renewable energy standards and targets are the top motivating drivers for smart grids globally, while advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is the top technology priority, according to a recent study from the International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN).

The other top motivating drivers in order are: • System efficiency improvements • Reliability improvements • Enabling customer choice and participation • Enabling new products, services, and markets.

The other top technology priorities are: • Large-size variable renewable energy sources integration • Demand response • Wind • Distributed energy resources.

The study, ‘Smart grid drivers and technologies by country, economies, and continent’, was based on a survey of the then (September 2012) 22 ISGAN participants. It forms part of the initiative to develop a global smart grid inventory.

When broken down by economies the picture change, somewhat, particularly for the developing economy participants. In this case the top driver is reliability improvements, and the top technology priority is condition-based monitoring and maintenance.

Similarly there are also differences when broken down by continent. System efficiency improvement is the only driver of priority and AMI is the only technology of priority to all continents.

In the next step of the initiative individual national projects will be assessed for inclusion in the project inventory.

www.iea-isgan.org

steering coMMittee to deveLop sMart grid roadMap in phiLippines

The Philippines Department of Energy has created an inter-agency steering committee to develop a national smart grid policy framework and roadmap.

The members of the committee include the DOE, which will also serve as chair, National Power Corporation (NPC), National Transmission Corporation (TransCo), National Electrification Administration (NEA), National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), and Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC).

Specific deliverables of the committee include a national smart grid strategy to 2030 with a consideration of the impact on electricity prices, along with transition policies and guidelines and a roadmap with timelines for smart grid implementation. A customer education and information framework will also be developed.

The committee will also be responsible for tapping funding from bilateral or multilateral funding institutions to finance smart grid initiatives, and for monitoring the implementation of the smart grid.

Several power industry participants, among them Meralco, have already started implementing smart grid initiatives.

www.doe.gov.ph

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COMPONENTS

By 2020 there will be about seven million smart gas meters installed in the Netherlands, using batteries that are supposed to last for about 20 years. The long lifetime of the batteries is crucial, because an operation to replace them would be on a large scale and therefore expensive. The Dutch DSOs (within Netbeheer Nederland) joined forces to carry out a unique study of predicted and actual battery lifetimes. In this study, batteries were examined from gas meters that had already been operating for 4-5 years. The results were promising: after 4-5 years, the actual (practical) lifetime of the batteries examined turned out to be in line with the predicted (theoretical) values.

In the coming years millions of smart meters will be installed in the Netherlands. Smart electricity meters are powered via the mains. Smart gas meters, however, are not connected up to the mains and have to have their own power supply: a battery.

According to the Dutch Smart Meter Requirements (DSMR4.0), the latest generation meter is supposed to function for 20 years including the battery. But is that realistic? The Dutch DSOs, cooperating within Netbeheer Nederland, have no field experience that battery powered meters can meet that requirement or have seen this demonstrated in reality. There is a lot of scepticism about whether a lifetime of 15 to 20 years can be achieved in a battery.

A decision was taken at Netbeheer Nederland to carry out a study of the batteries in the first smart electronic gas meters that had been installed (in 2007 and 2008).

The investigation was unusual in that it was the first time anywhere in the world, as far as is known, that a battery supplier (Tadiran), gas meter manufacturers (Flonidan DC and Landis+Gyr) and Dutch DSOs jointly carried out such a study and openly published the results (first presented at Metering, Billing/CRM Europe in Amsterdam in October 2012). The study was carried out from June to October 2012 by a number of technical specialists from Netbeheer Netherland, the battery supplier, and technicians from the gas meter manufacturers. This study of the batteries was part of the larger smart metering programme at Netbeheer Nederland.

METHOD AND PROJECT DESIGNSmart gas meters for the study came from three Dutch DSOs, DELTA Netwerkbedrijf, ENEXIS and STEDIN. The gas meters, both wireless and wired M-Bus, came from various use cases, as detailed in Table 1.

INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE LIFETIME OF GAS METER BATTERIES IN THE NETHERLANDSBy Horst Reuning and Machiel Joosse

The batteries and meters involved had been used in different ways. The three use cases for the same type of Flonidan wired M-Bus gas meter were particularly interesting, because these included:• Unused meters (in storage since 2007), no communication• Meters that had been operating from October 2007 to April

2012, communicating once per hour• Meters that had been operating from May 2008 to May 2012,

communicating 180 times per hour!

PROJECT APPROACHThe project approach and timeline is illustrated in Figure 1.

After their removal from the gas meters, the batteries were marked with unique numbers and sent to Tadiran with no further explanation of the use cases. In the first instance, the information about power consumption and use case for the various batteries

Table 1 – Gas meters selected for battery testing

Figure 1 – Project timeline

COMPONENTS

was not disclosed. The battery manufacturer was only given this information after the residual capacity of the batteries had been determined.

The team from Netbeheer Nederland examined the electronics, together with the gas meter manufacturer. Important questions to be answered here were whether: • The age of the component has an effect on the energy

consumption, and • The measured energy consumption is in line with the original

values that were used for the lifetime calculation.

A digital multimeter was used to measure the idle current of the gas meter electronics and an oscilloscope combined with a measurement resistor was used to measure the current peaks/profile.

Figure 2 – Measurement set-up

Figure 3 - Long term test, D-cell @RT under various continuous loads. Test is being continued

BATTERY INVESTIGATIONS

Lithium thionyl chloride batteriesThe high voltage (3.6 V), high energy content (19 Ah in a D size cell), and low self-discharge rate (typically 0.5% per year) are the decisive features that make lithium thionyl chloride (Li/SOCl2) batteries the number one choice for long term standalone power sources like those needed for a 20 year gas meter. Tadiran has more than 40 years’ experience with this technology. Customers like Aclara (formerly Hexagram) have installed Tadiran AA size lithium batteries in their AMR devices 25 years ago and report that these devices are still operating on their original batteries.

Lifetime calculation modelHowever, prediction of battery life in a particular application requires more than customer testimonials. Long term real life tests under continuous and pulse loads at different levels have been conducted for many years (Figure 3). Self-discharge rates have been determined at different temperatures and under

Download our applicat ion guide from www.tadiranbat ter ies.co.uk >> Products >> Applicat ions >> Bat ter ies for smar t ut ili t y meters

Smart Meteringrequires reliable power sourcesprove

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Tadiran Batteries GmbH | Industriestr. 22 | 63654 BÜDINGEN | GERMANY Tel: +49 6042 954-0 | Fax: +49 6042 954-190 | E-mail: [email protected]


COMPONENTS

Figure 5: Results – case Stedin (Landis+Gyr E6V meters)

Figure 6: Results – case Enexis (Flonidan Pre NTA wireless M-bus meters)

Figure 4: Results – case DNWB (Flonidan Pre NTA wired M-bus meters)

different load currents. Cell components were carefully selected, modified, and tested before the formula for a 20-year battery was found. Tadiran’s lifetime calculation model takes the battery composition into account as well as the related self-discharge rate and internal resistance. The result is a function of the application current profile, temperature profile, and minimum application voltage.

While considerable effort has been made on the battery manufacturer’s side to develop and improve the batteries and their life calculation model, a thorough study of field application life data has not previously been performed.

Investigation methods The task allocated to Tadiran was to determine the residual capacity of lithium cells returned by Netbeheer. Two different methods were used for this investigation.• Electrical discharge. This method was

a straightforward electrical discharge where the discharge rate is accelerated compared to the current consumption of the gas meter. Determination of the proper load is a trade-off between accuracy and test duration because these lithium batteries are optimized for a 20-year battery life and not for a laboratory test usually taking only a few weeks.

AA cells from the Flonidan gas meters were discharged on 1,800 Ω continuous load to 2 V. D-cells from the Landis+Gyr gas meters were discharged in two steps on 560 Ω and later on 180 Ω.

• Chemical titration. Under these loads, a certain percentage of the residual capacity is not accessible due to an increase of the internal resistance of the battery. Therefore titration was applied to a subset of the investigated batteries as a second, more rigorous method. This method is based on a chemical reaction and consumes literally all the residual lithium metal in a battery. Batteries were opened, internal parts such as the cathode, current collector and separator were removed, and the residual lithium was dissolved in water, yielding a basic aqueous solution. Finally, the lithium content was determined by the amount of acid required for its neutralization.

RESULTSTadiran examined 10 batteries by discharging them through a load resistor. This method discharges a battery more quickly.

A resistance of 560 Ω was used initially. However, at the end of August it became clear that this discharge rate would only

COMPONENTS

yield results at the end of 2012. After consultation with Netbeheer Nederland, it was then decided that the resistance should be reduced to 180 Ω in order to obtain results by the time of the Metering, Billing/CRM Europe 2012 event. The average capacity discharged was 14.14 Ah. In addition, 3 of the 10 cells were also investigated by titration after having been discharged; this revealed an additional residual capacity of 0.86 Ah.

CONCLUSIONTadiran’s results give two extreme limits for the measured residual capacity:• Minimum, where the battery is ‘emptied’ at an accelerated rate

via residual discharge• Maximum, by titration.

It is assumed that the actual residual capacity available will be somewhere between these two limits. The calculation of the expected remaining battery life is based on the arithmetic average of the two, i.e. (residual discharge result + titration result) / 2.

The results from the gas meters examined, which had been in use for four to five years, showed the following:• Remaining lifetime after normal usage, with communication

once an hour: Landis+Gyr E6V >16 years

• Flonidan wired M-Bus >17 years Flonidan wireless M-Bus >20 years

• The residual cell capacity matches or exceeds the expected life as originally calculated

The number of measurements made on the gas meter electronics investigated was not sufficient to allow any conclusive statements to be made about the influence of ageing on power consumption.

ABOUT THE AUTHORSHorst Reuning has an electrotechnical background and worked in the industrial battery industry for decades in the field of sales and marketing. He worked for Sonnenschein Lithium/Tadiran for almost 20 years in total, since 2001 as their sales and marketing manager. In April 2012 he retired and since then serves the company as senior consultant.

Machiel Joosse is responsible for the technology of smart metering at DELTA Netwerkbedrijf B.V. the Distribution System Operator in Zeeland (southwest Netherlands). After obtaining his Bachelor degree he started his career as an R&D engineer in both hard- and embedded software, before joining DELTA’s smart metering program as engineer. He has participated in several technical smart metering workgroups within Netbeheer Nederland.

ABOUT THE COMPANIESTadiran is a leader in the development of lithium batteries for industrial use. Its technology is well established for more than 40 years. Tadiran lithium thionyl chloride batteries are suitable where utility meters require a single long term stand-alone power source. When the battery has to supply high pulse currents for a GSM module, Tadiran’s PulsesPlus technology is a good choice.www.tadiranbatteries.de

Netbeheer Nederland is the Association of Energy Network Operators in the Netherlands, established in October 2007 to represent the interests of national and regional electricity and gas network operators in the Netherlands. Netbeheer Nederland promotes dialogue with governmental bodies and market participants and consults with the Office of Energy Regulation, NMa/Energiekamer

www.netbeheernederland.nl

Further studies, particularly using gas meters and batteries that have been operational for a longer period of time, would be able to give even more reliable results. This study and method of approach may be a suitable starting point for such work at other DSOs worldwide.

Openly publishing the results of such studies, as was done in this case, will maximize the usefulness for all parties involved and help ensure that smart meters can be installed successfully in Europe and the rest of the world. MI

investigations into the lifetime of gas meter batteries in the netherlands

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