The 11th International Renewable Energy Congress (IREC 2020)

Smart Metering Synthesis Devoted to Tunisian Grid

Arwa ben farhat, Electrical engineering department,
Enicarthage, Charguia 2, Tunis, Tunisia
arwabenfarhat@gmail.com
adnen cherif, Physic department, University of Tunis, El manar
adnen2.cherif@yahoo.fr

Abstract-Smart Grid (SG) is the intelligent electrical grid based integration [5]. Many other works are devoted to the
on information and communication technologies (ICT) and harmonic rate reduction [6] and energy loss minimization.
wireless sensor networks for the exchange of data and energy
flows. The main challenges of the SG are the smart metering The authors in [7] have investigated in the demand side
system(SMS),. The main goal of this research paper is the design management, they have designed a communication protocol
and the implementation of a smart metering model devoted to
to enable the bidirectional communication of data and energy
the Tunisian conventional grid using the advanced metering
infrastructure (AMI) to enable the intelligence of the Tunisian flows for balancing the offers and the demands. In this same
power grid. To achieve this goal, we have developed a web portal area, authors of [8] were interested on the demand response
for the Tunisian electrical data company to acquire the real- management; they have proposed optimal management
time load use according to the previous load data measurement strategies to reduce the peak power periods. The authors in
and the solar radiation prediction without resorting to the [9] have processed with the dynamic pricing; they have
conventional meters for the electrical data reading. The designed and simulated a single line diagram Smart Grid
implemented web portal for Tunisian electrical grid has model. They have presented off-peak, mid-peak and on-peak
predicted the daily and monthly energy consumption and has power in the smart grid model to improve the energy gain and
sent warning notifications to inform subscribers about the peak
to optimize the cost of energy use for residential users.
power period and to present the overall state of power grid. The
used development environment for the smart metering
implementation is Software Development kit (SDK) for Android
The authors in [10] have proposed the Net Metering (NM)
and the obtained results are acquired by using the Am Chart of have approach to measure the conventional and the self-
SDK for Android, the obtained curves are generated by both generated energy at the level of providers and the end-users,
SDK for Android and Excel software. thy have designed and simulated an online measurement
Keywords—Conventional grid, Smart Grid, smart metering, protocol to evaluate the online energy loss between providers
information and communication technologies, web portal. and consumers. The authors in [11] have designed a protocol
to predict the efficiency and the reliability of Smart Meters
1. Introduction: and to evaluate their capacities related to the billing
functions. Authors in [12] have designed a communication
The conventional grid is the centralized power grid based on infrastructure model, which uses interactive data flows to
the unidirectional transfer of conventional energy flow and enable the connection of the Smart Meters to the central unit.
the hierarchical energy procurement from providers to end- The designed communication model was used the home area
users. This aging infrastructure of the centralized power grid network in the residential cities and the field area network in
is still used in many developing countries like in Tunisia. The the business units to facilitate the dealing with the demand
Tunisian grid is suffering from the deficiency of energy side management.
generation and the inability of supplying the electrical
demand growth [1]. Moreover, the scarcity of the Authors in [14, 15] have focused on the improvement of
conventional energy and the high cost of the electrical power energy systems efficiency, by proposing a new architecture
production from conventional resources, are the most are the allowing the best coupling with renewable resources. Other
most important reason leading to emerge the Smart Grid (SG) works are focused on the energy management like the author
with the Photovoltaic energy integration to improve the in [14-16] who have introduced the concept of internet of
electrical generation [2] and to enhance the quality of supply. energy with the information systems and the communication
strategies to control the management side and the power
In literature, many research studies dealing with the Smart supply. Likewise, authors of [17-18] have used internet of
Grid are under development. Most of them are interested on things to control the smart energy systems, and have used
the design of a new architecture to converge from the new methods enabled the reduction of the consumption rate
conventional power grid to Smart grid. The main objective of and tariff cost.
many is the intelligence of the grid [3, 4]. Other research
studies are focused on the study of the possible solutions to This paper presents an innovative smart measurement
maintain the stability of the electrical network and decrease approach devoted to the centralized conventional Tunisian
the disturbances resulted from renewable resources grid. This work is aimed to support the convergence of the

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Tunisian grid from conventional to Smart Grid to enable the with respect to the related works. The section 5 summarizes
remote exchange of real electrical data between providers and the contribution of this paper in a conclusion and proposes
consumers. This work has used smart meters, Information some perspectives for their consideration as future works.
and communication technologies (ICT) and wireless sensor
networks (WSN) to acquire the electrical data consumption 2. The design of the Smart Metering:
and to ensure a better control and supervision of the Tunisian 2.1 The smart metering model design
grid. This work is interested on the rationalization of the users The proposed smart metering model is based on the use of
by sending warning notifications to inform each user about two main components: the advanced metering infrastructure
the peak power and the used energy by their various devices (AMI) and the information and communication technologies
as well as the cost of the energy consumption in function of (ICT) included wireless area networks for the exchange of
each used device to increase their awareness about the load electrical data and the transfer of energy flows. Fig.1 presents
use reduction. the proposed smart metering model for the intelligence of
Tunisian grid, the smart metering model presented the smart
This research paper is arranged as follow: the Section 2 meters, which are connected to the advanced metering
presents the general design of the Smart Metering approach infrastructure via wireless access network and energy
devoted to Tunisian grid. The section 3 presents the scenarios gateway. The wireless access network enabled the transfer of
of electrical consumption in the Tunisian grid in function of the electrical consumption measurements from the smart
daily and monthly interval, it presents the scenario of the cost meters to the data concentrators and the energy gateway
of the energy consumption resulted by the use of electrical enabled the real-time data collection of energy consumption
domestic devices in the household of consumers, and presents to enable the exchange of the consumption data and the
the scenario of peak power and power limit in the Tunisian transfer of energy flows between consumers and providers.
grid. The section 4 discusses the contribution of this paper

The advanced metering infrastructure will be implemented in The connected hubs are used to facilitate the transfer of the
the conventional grid of Tunisia and the smart metering massive data of the real-time electrical consumption
application will be used for the acquisition of the electrical measurements from each local data concentrator to the
measurements from the smart meters to the data advanced metering infrastructure.
concentrators and their management in the Meter Data
Management to supply the electrical needs of the consumers. 2.2 Methodology:

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The smart metering method has used wireless sensor TIC to acquire the data measurements and to transfer alert
networks and ICT for the exchange of the electrical notifications to inform users about peak powers and electrical
consumption data between consumers and providers. The network state.
electrical consumption data have been processed in the Meter The main service of the smart metering appliance were the
Data Management (MDM) to supply the needs of the end- energy consumption measurement, the data management, is
users with the conventional power considering the the transfer of warning notification messages to inform the
decentralized Photovoltaic energy generation. subscribers about the potential power cuts, the peak period
For the management and the processing of energy consumption, and the several operational constraints
consumption data, an interactive website enabled by internet occurring in the whole system.
protocol, ICT and energy gateway has been developed to Figure 2 presented the class diagram related to the smart
collect the consumption measurements from AMI. The metering database; the class diagram contained the smart
acquired measurements were be used for the dynamic metering entities enabling the remote measurement service.
prediction of the electrical needs and the photovoltaic energy The main actor of the smart metering was the subscriber who
production of the end-users for the calculation of the received the energy consumption measurements (input data)
electrical needs of each consumer considering the rate of the and the warning notifications about the peak power and the
Photovoltaic energy generation. electrical grid status.
The energy consumption measurements are measured in The Software-Development Kit for Android and the database
function of the days and the months, there are followed in the of Tunisian Grid Company were used for the implementation
web portal and exchanged between the consumers and the of the smart metering application. The energy consumption
providers. The web portal was used for the demonstration of measurements were generated by Am Charts for DSK for
the smart metering method; it was an interactive web portal Android. The alert notifications were aimed to insist the
and had the capacity to add new subscribers and new smart subscribers to control their consumption during peak power
meters to correspond to the Tunisian smart grid extension. periods to reduce the electrical network operational
The smart metering application was used the wireless sensor constraints.
networks, the energy gateways, the internet protocol and the

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 Fig 2: class diagram showing our database of our smart metering

The smart metering is developed to enhance the infrastructure developed to collect the previous consumption data to predict
of the existent Tunisian power grid to support the intelligence the current and next energy consumption data, as well as to
of the conventional current grid and to enable its convergence estimate the state of the grid. The smart metering application
from the conventional grid to the smart grid. It has been used wireless area network and the ICT to ensure the two-

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way communication between data consumption and energy daily and monthly intervals and was enabled the interaction
flow. between subscribers and providers.
The Fig.3 presented the daily energy consumption scenario,
3. The validation of the smart metering application it presented a variation in the shape of the daily consumption
3.1. The smart measurement of the energy consumption curve, and this variation is explained by the climatic factors
The smart metering application was used an interactive web and the nature of the day (weekend, holiday, ordinary
site that was followed the consumption data in function of the working day ...).

Fig.3.The followed daily consumption on the web portal

The Fig.4 presented the monthly energy consumption unavailability of photovoltaic power during the winter period
scenario, the winter months showed an increase in the due to the solar energy lack.
conventional energy use, this is explained by the

Fig 4.The followed monthly consumption on the web portal

by each electronic device, this scenario is aimed to generate

The Fig.5 presented the electrical measurements of the the consumer awareness about reducing the energy
several devices of Tunisian citizens, it was followed the consumption in order to decrease the billing fees.
average consumption level of the Tunisian citizens and
calculated the related cost of the electrical consumption used

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 Fig.5.The consumption cost of each electronic device in a household consumer
support Tunisian electrical company to control and to solve
The Fig.6 presented the daily warning notifications to inform technical problems of the Tunisian Grid.
Tunisian electrical company about the peak power, the power
limit, the potential current cuts… This scenario is generated .
to give a complete visualization on the state of the grid and to

Fig.6.The scenario of the power grid status

consumption forecasting in order to improve the performance
4. Discussion on the contribution of the energy distribution and to supply the needs of the
The smart metering application has offered an interactive consumers with the energy flows supply. It is aimed to
website enabled the data exchange between consumers and enhance the old Tunisian grid infrastructure by the
providers, it used smart meters, wireless sensor networks and integration of the smart meters to reduce the electrical
ICT for the control of the consumption measurements and consumption errors generated by the conventional meters and
the remote supervision of the Tunisian grid status in large the use of ICT enabled the remote measurement of the energy
scale and in real-time. consumption. This solution is aimed to enhance the
The developed smart metering application was focused on the operational intelligence of the Tunisian Electrical Grid
previous consumption data measurement for the energy Company by using the energy consumption measurements

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for the prediction of the next electrical consumption rates and constraints threatening the electrical network like the
the control of the power grid status. This solution has offered Tunisian Grid Smart metering which offered an alert
an alert notification service to inform users about the notification service to inform users about all operational
operational constraints related to the grid status for constraints threating the Tunisian electrical grid.
generating the awareness of consumers and providers to take Other research works have dealt with the smart metering like
the necessary measures. the smart metering for the smart power consumption
Many research works have dealt with the remote proposed by the authors in [26] that have measured the
measurement of the energy production and consumption like energy consumption in 10 households and have analyzed the
the Net Metering approach proposed by the authors in [10] behavior of the consumers, however, they have not studied
that have proposed an online service for the power the operational constraints related to the bad behavior of the
measurement from PV Panels and from the end-users to consumers as (peak powers, current-cuts...) threating the
evaluate the energy loss in Maribor Department. This electrical network like it was done in the Tunisian Grid Smart
solution has measured the input and output energy but has Metering approach.
just limited on the energy loss returning and not all the
Existing Contribution Limitations
approach

• Net Metering scheme is unable to boost the

The design of the Net metering scheme for the remote penetration of electricity generated from
Net metering power measurement from PV Panels and from the end- renewable energy sources, it is also unable
[10] users to evaluate the energy loss in Maribor department.
to use high storage techniques to reduce the
energy online losses.
• Increased installations of PV systems
increase grid costs.

Using energy consumption database provided from • The smart Metering (SM) approach is
Smart service provider to generate the graphs of energy limited to the generation and the analysis of
metering for consumption for the analysis of the behavior of the energy consumption scenarios, the cost
power consumers toward energy consumption in 10
and the cumulative cost on 10 households.
consumption households and the correlation between energy and
[26] cost. • The SM approach does not propose methods
to reduce the energy consumption and does
not suggest solutions to decrease the cost
related to the energy consumption.
• The SM approach does not propose any
solution nor to the needs growth of
consumers, neither the operational
constraints on the grid.

Proposed Contribution Limitations

approach
Tunisian Grid • The integration of SM, WSN and ICT for the • The Tunisian Grid Smart Metering approach
Smart convergence of the old and aging Tunisian grid need to be extended by dealing with the
Metering infrastructure to smart grid. demand site management to serve the
• The use of SM, WSN and ICT for the remote electrical needs of the users and ensuring the
measurement of energy consumption in Tunisia. quality of supply.
• The measurement of electrical power use of
different devices, including the household of the
Tunisian user and the calculation of energy
consumption cost in function of unit price.
• The prediction of the potential operational
constraints on the conventional Tunisian grid and
the generation of The Tunisian grid state scenario
to support Tunisian electrical company to solve the
potential operational issues in the grid.

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 function of the time interval (days, months…). The
5. CONCLUSION main advantages of the Tunisian grid smart metering
application are the remote measurement of the
In this research paper, a smart metering application current electrical consumption for the next electrical
devoted to the conventional Tunisian grid was needs forecasting and the supervision of the grid
designed and developed to enable the convergence status by the generation of the operational
from the conventional power grid to the smart grid. constraints threatening the electrical network.
The smart metering application was used smart
meters, wireless sensor networks, Internet protocol This work will deal with the demand side
and information and communication technologies management based on the optimization of the
(ICT) to acquire remotely the consumption data in conventional energy use and the resort to the
order to improve the data reliability by reducing the photovoltaic power use for the reduction of the cost
errors generated by conventional meters use. The of the electrical needs supply considering the quality
smart metering application was developed to inform of the supply and the balance between the offers and
the consumers about their consumption rate in the demands
.
[14]Das HS, Dey A et.al. Feasibility analysis of standalone
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