Smappee - mobile metering - distribution grid operators

Mobile metering solution for industrial environments.

In recent years, renewable energy has enjoyed great success among households, mainly in the form of solar panels and increasingly EVs. Notwithstanding the fact that this evolution benefits environmental goals, it’s the cause of an important challenge for grid operators. Users are now both consuming and producing energy, disrupting the balance between the different grid phases. This is due to the fact that neighborhoods with many solar panels are connected to one phase, demanding little power or putting power back to grid, while the other phases connect to fewer houses with solar panels, demanding a lot more energy. These fluctuations in energy demand impact or even damage medium voltage transformers in high-voltage cabins. As a result, grid operators are looking for a flexible solution to monitor energy flows in these cabins. Based on their insights, they can restore the balance by shifting energy flows to different phases or by installing a battery or a heavier transformer and thus safeguard the proper functioning of the grid.

Mobile solution.

In recent years, renewable energy has enjoyed great success among households, mainly in the form of solar panels and increasingly EVs. Notwithstanding the fact that this evolution benefits environmental goals, it’s the cause of an important challenge for grid operators. Users are now both consuming and producing energy, disrupting the balance between the different grid phases. This is due to the fact that neighborhoods with many solar panels are connected to one phase, demanding little power or putting power back to grid, while the other phases connect to fewer houses with solar panels, demanding a lot more energy. These fluctuations in energy demand impact or even damage medium voltage transformers in high-voltage cabins. As a result, grid operators are looking for a flexible solution to monitor energy flows in these cabins. Based on their insights, they can restore the balance by shifting energy flows to different phases or by installing a battery or a heavier transformer and thus safeguard the proper functioning of the grid. A grid operator asked Smappee to help find a solution to tackle this situation. Flexibility was key as they have to monitor over 40,000 cabins spread over 12 regions. The aim is to analyze the power flows in the cabins to discover how the grid and the transformers react to the injected solar power and power demand for EV charging. Those insights will help determine what actions can restore the grid balance. Smappee developed a portable case with several boxes in which different Smappee Infinity components are put together. This set-up offers technicians a mobile, robust, easy-to-install solution that transfers detailed, real-time data to the Smappee Dashboard. Immediately after installation, the grid operator is able to track the activity in the cabin on the Smappee Dashboard. When the pain points in a cabin are identified, the technician can easily move the equipment to the next cabin.

Reliable, real-time data transfer.

Besides offering a portable measuring tool, the mobile Smappee metering solution also includes its own communication gateway, Smappee Genius, and a 3/4G dongle – in addition to many other communications options such as Wi-Fi and Ethernet. This guarantees very accurate data and a reliable, automatic and real-time data transfer to the Smappee Dashboard. Other metering systems only allow data collection readings and registration manually when the technician goes on site after the monitoring period and come with an expensive software license. The professional Smappee Dashboard is part of the Smappee ecosystem, and its use is included in the solution. The dashboard provides the level of analysis and insights that are needed to deduce valuable insights and conclusions. In this case it enables its users to track fluctuations in power demand and generation, its impact on the grid balance and the transformer and to obtain valuable insights. Based on that information users can take action in order to stabilize the situation and to guarantee proper functioning of the grid.

Smappee - mobile metering - Distributor grid operators

Tailored reporting.

The Smappee Dashboard allows for a great level of personalization. In this case the grid operator had a specific 5-minute report made in order to get a better view of the maximum electrical power. The Smappee Dashboard is being used by different people within the grid operator’s organization where they can follow the data live from the dashboard for all cabins where the Smappee metering solution is installed. They can monitor a whole series of real-time or historical data on consumption and production for each cabin separately. In addition, they can compare the results of different cabins and allow users to organize the data in any way they want on the dashboard.

In conclusion, Smappee’s mobile metering solution has infinite applications for technicians that need to perform industrial measurements to gain insights into energy flows, consumption and production even when they are limited in time or spread over several sites.

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