Am readying myself for the Monday blues and thinking how smart metering would benefit the less talked about player in the utility industry. Yeah! You guessed it right, its the distributors am thinking of. Well then lets see how a distributor can reap the benefits of the smart metering implementation. For distributors, the advantages are pretty much similar to the ones enjoyed by the supplier. However the flip side is it’s affect on the Customer’s Minutes Lost (CML) SLA. Whenever there is a fault in the distribution network the time of fault starts only when a member of public reports the incident. With smart meter the clock starts ticking the moment there is a fault in the network. Hence distributors need better infrastructure to leverage smart meters remote notification services. Let us also look at some of the distributor benefits:
(1) Based on the consumption data provided by Smart meters, Distributors are better positioned to manage and monitor the distribution network. Forecasting consumption levels to tailor the monitoring program would be a thing of past as real time usage levels will be available.
(2) Distributors can now accurately bill the suppliers and market participants for the usage of the distribution network thereby reducing losses and giving a tighter budget control
(3) Smart metering allows distributors to quickly identify and exactly position any faults in the system on power outages and interruptions. Smart meters also use tamper alerts which safeguards against distribution network power thefts.
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