Enabling Terminal-Side Intelligence for Smart Meters: Design and Applications

With the increasing demand for electrical data analysis, close proximity of computational resources to the terminal side has become a priority in modern power systems considering extant weaknesses with regard to operational efficiency, data security and the increasing burden of the cloud. Nevertheless, smart meters lacks local resources as modern terminals of smart grids. On the other hand, the alternative solutions based on edge computing may be inadequate in flexibility. To this end, a device aiming to enable terminal-side intelligence for smart meters is proposed in this work. First the functional design of the device is elaborated and a prototype of it is then introduced. Finally, two typical applications of this device are illustrated respectively. In addition to the traditional functions of smart meters, the proposed device is endowed with the capability of local computing whereby it has broad application prospects in the future.