Case Study

ENABLING THE SMART GRID IN INDIA: PUDUCHERRY

PILOT PROJECT

Company
Electricity Department,
Government of Puducherry
Region
India
Industry
AMR/AMI
Website
http://electricity.puducherry.gov.in

The Electricity Department of Puducherry was facing issues due to error

prone manual meter reading, lack of visibility of peak demand periods and
inefficiencies in energy accounting.

Client Context
The Electricity Department of Puducherry was laboring
with old metering systems characterized by error prone
manual meter reading, lack of visibility of peak demand
periods and inefficiencies in energy accounting due to
tampering issues and power theft. The issue was further
compounded by ever increasing demand for electricity,
which the utility was unable to match, and an inadequate
distribution network with high overheads. A smart grid was
envisaged for the city of Puducherry to reduce distribution
losses, improve electricity efficiency in the grid as well
as at energy users homes and offices, and enable twoway digital communication to monitor devices associated
with the grid from a centralized control center. The smart
grid would also bring equilibrium to the demand-supply
relationship, increase reliability by improving response
time to outages and enhance operational efficiency. The
utility would also be able to monitor energy consumption in
real-time leading to speedy identification and resolution of

tampering and theft issues. Consumers too would benefit

from reduced electricity bills, greater reliability and quality
of power supply.
Solution
The Electricity Department of Puducherry and the Power
Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) decided to launch
a consumer utility interactive smart grid pilot in the city of
Puducherry. The Puducherry smart grid pilot is Indias first
smart grid project, involving installation of smart meters in
households, aiming to ultimately cover a total of 87,000
households in Puducherry. About 65 organizations worked
together on this project and Kalkitech is a key member of this
group. The Indian Smart Grid Task Force (ISGTF) envisages
a total of 14 pilots, to be followed by mass deployment
on a staggered basis across major cities. The pilot project
would enable Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)/
Smart Metering as well as improve the quality of distribution
management system applications.

www.kalkitech.com

The Electricity Department of Government of Puducherry is responsible for the transmission,

distribution and retail supply of electricity in Puducherry, Karaikal, Yanam and Mahe regions of
the Union Territory of Puducherry. It operates an extensive network of power transmission and
distribution systems spread across the four regions of the Union Territory.

Figure 1: Architecture Diagram

There are 14 pilot projects

planned and a corpus of Rs.9,500
crore has been earmarked for
smart grid implementation. So the
Smart Grid has a bright future in
India. Kalkitech has a very unique
role to play as MDAS and DCU,
which are critical components of
smart grid implementations, are
its strengths.
Senior Official, Smart Grid
Initiative, Power Grid Corporation
of India Limited (PGCIL).

Enabling seamless collection and

transmission of data
A low cost Advanced Metering
Infrastructure (AMI) with automated
meter
reading
facility
was
implemented for all consumers under
various distribution transformers
located in the pilot area. PGCIL
proposed
interoperable,
open
standards based solution compatible
with Zigbee smart energy and DLMS/
COSEM protocols.
Kalkitech installed its SYNC 1711 LT
Metering DCU with built-in Zigbee
modem and GPRS interface to collect
data related to energy consumption,
demand and tamper events from
single phase meters in areas with

a high density of population. The

DCU stores the data collected from
each meter and transmits it to the
SYNC 5000 MDAS, which is a server
based meter data head end system
compatible with multiple standards
based protocols as well as proprietary
protocols. The web services interface
of SYNC 5000 allows it to transmit
billing data to the third party MDM
system. Kalkitechs interoperable
solution using Zigbee smart energy
protocol delivered valuable results
by validating the suitability of 2.4GHz
Zigbee radio mesh technology for
adoption in residential areas with a
high density of consumers.

www.kalkitech.com

We faced a few challenges

during deployment like
establishing a neighborhood
area network between the
meters and the DCUs with
Zigbee RF Mesh topology.
Through this deployment we
have gained insights into DCU
positioning and in addition
developed guidelines for
improving the reliability of the
RF mesh network in urban
areas. The Kalkitech team
worked closely with meter
vendors, PGCIL and the
MDM vendor to establish an
inter-operable, end-to-end
metering solution based on
open standards.
Nobin Matthew, AVP CoE,
Kalkitech

Results
The smart grid project at Puducherry
has delivered multiple benefits to the
Electricity Department of Puducherry
as well as to end users. The pilot has
laid the communication infrastructure in
place for deployment of peak demand
reduction program which is presently
under
implementation.
Real-time
identification of tampering and power
theft issues from control center has
resulted in speedy resolution. The web

based user interface of SYNC 5000

MDAS has enabled easy monitoring of
the AMI system by maintenance crews
and utility offices.
Consumers have gained visibility into
power consumption and are able to
make informed decisions about usage,
leading to better management and
fewer billing disputes. They have also
benefited from quicker restoration of
power in case of an outage.

Smart Grids are the future of electric

power supply and would go a long
way in reducing environmental impact
and making power more accessible for
all. Transforming the existing electric
infrastructure through a Smart Grid
is the way forward to ensure efficient
and reliable power supply, and achieve
energy conservation on the path to
sustainable development.

Contact Us
KALKI Communication Technologies Private Limited
#147, 5th Main Road, HSR Layout Sector 7,
Bangalore 560102, INDIA

Telephone: +91-80-4052 7900

Fax: +91-80-2572 5473
Email: info@kalktech.com
sales@kalkitech.com

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