Notice

Smart Meter Based Internet of Things Applications: Phase 1 projects

Updated 8 August 2023

The Smart Meter System based Internet of Things Applications Programme aims to support innovation to determine the feasibility of, and trial, Smart Meter System based IoT sensor devices.

City Science SMART Hub for Distributed Demand Side Response

Participant organisations:

• City Science
• University of Exeter

Project costs: £49,665.81

Project summary

City Science will develop an innovative “SmartHub” device to enable Demand Side Response (DSR) - flexible electricity usage by households to reduce domestic bills and protect the grid. With consumer consent, this device would transfer data from distributed in-home sensors and from the household’s smart meter, securely via the smart metering system’s Data Communications Company (DCC) network to the DSR provider (in this case, City Science).

The Phase 1 investigation will focus on the management of heat pumps for domestic heating, but the device will be designed using open standards to allow for various DSR applications (e.g. smart EV charging and the management of other smart appliances). The project will investigate how existing Internet of Things (IoT) communications can be developed to use the secure smart metering system and technology, for a wide range of solutions to transform the market for DSR.

Project SMASH

Participant organisations:

• Green Energy Options

Project costs: £49,421.80

Project summary

Green Energy Options will explore a number of use cases critical to enabling a future, flexible and low-carbon energy system. These include capacity planning and management of low-voltage networks, load peak avoidance in individual homes and support for residential demand side response. In addition to the technology approach, the project will consider and make recommendations regarding the regulatory frameworks required to deploy the proposed solution at scale and maximise its benefits.

Their project - SMASH (Smart Meter And Sensor equipped Homes), is a feasibility study for the design, development and deployment of a PPMID display unit that is also a home energy management system (HEMS) and forms part of a single, secure and interoperable platform capable of collecting, processing and transmitting data from sensors and other sources.

Data would be collected from the smart meter, load control devices, sensors embedded in the PPMID/HEMS device and external sensors – wirelessly connected to the device by the smart meter home network.

The PPMID/HEMS, in combination with its cloud-based digital twin would collate and process this sensor data in near real time and make it available, in line with data protection requirements through secure channels to energy suppliers, (and where possible, other approved parties), via the existing secure smart metering system Data Communications Company (DCC) network to support a range of applications.

Smart Metering Internet of Things System

Participant organisations:

• Hildebrand
• DCC
• University of Salford

Project costs: £47,890

Project summary

Hildebrand’s “Smart Metering Internet Of Things System” (SMIOTS) project will investigate using sensors connected via the secure Data Communication Company (DCC) smart metering communications system to provide data for the management of energy use flexibility and efficiency. A scalable data management model will support applications at the individual home level, also at  neighbourhood, regional, national and network scales. In Phase 1, Hildebrand propose to develop temperature and humidity sensing, tested against the DCC systems integration testing (SIT) environment. A temperature and humidity sensor will be incorporated within a standard PPMID device and in addition, the reference design will be generalised for other types of low data rate sensing, to support a range of potential applications. The use of data from these sensors will be in the control of the energy consumer themselves, shared only with parties that have been granted access by the consumer. Standard open data transmission formats will be used to increase the utility of the device beyond the supplier role; security and privacy controls will continue to be enforced, with the system holding an inventory of devices and pass messages rather than storing sensor readings themselves.

Flexibility Innovation Project – Internet of Things

Participant organisations:

• N3rgy Data
• Green Energy UK
• Chameleon
• Gen Game

Project costs: £35,550

Project summary

N3rgy Data’s proposal is to use the N3rgy energy data service platform to capture consent to access temperature data and gas consumption data from smart gas meters, via the Smart Meter System as an “Other User” (an authorised party other than an Energy Supplier). N3rgy Data will use Chameleon’s IHD7 smart meter in-home display product (already in deployment as part of the smart meter rollout), which has a dormant temperature sensor built in. With firmware changes delivered remotely, they will take temperature data from within the home and send it back via the smart metering Home Area Network (HAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) in the form of standard system “alert” messages to the Energy Supplier - Green Energy UK (GEUK). The N3rgy Data platform will be integrated to GEUK to receive these messages, along with outside temperature data obtained from weather-reporting sources. N3rgy will use a heat coefficient algorithm to identify the heat efficiency of consumer’s premises, using the consumer’s consented gas consumption, inside temperature data and outside temperature data - analysing historic gas usage data to create different archetype groups and benchmarks to compare individual homes. Tailored advice and solutions could then be presented to consumers on how to use energy more cost effectively and lower their carbon impact; energy efficiency upgrade options (fabric, systems etc) could also be offered. N3rgy Data will explore any changes to the Smart Energy Code that may be needed to enable smart meter system alert messages derived from in-home sensors to be made available to authorised Other User organisations

The low cost enabler to connect IoT data to the SMS and make smart energy products smarter

Participant organisations:

• Octopus
• Silicon Labs
• Rufilla
• NCC Group
• Element Energy

Project costs: £42,232

Project summary

Octopus’s project will build on their  proprietary solution ‘Octopus Home’, a Consumer Access Device (CAD).  A CAD is a cloud-connected secure smart meter gateway device that accesses real-time energy data from smart meters and sends that data to a designated cloud service. As a result of this project, the CAD will connect to many “Internet of Things” (IoT) sensor devices (measuring temperature, humidity etc) to their cloud-based platform to allow real time, advanced insights. It will also manage, directly via local connection, IoT control devices (such as heat pump controls or EV chargers). By combining the sensor readings with their algorithms, Octopus hope to use the smart meter network in place of proprietary cloud services to create smarter controls to optimise energy usage for these products and unlock flexibility services, to reduce stress on the network and lower the cost to supply electricity.

During Phase 1 Octopus Energy along with Rufilla, NCC Group, Silicon Labs and Element Energy, will look at: securing Certified Product Assurance (CPA) security certification of the Octopus Home product; adding new environment sensors to the device; connecting a Home Area Network Connected Auxiliary Load Control Switch (HCALCS) or Standalone Auxiliary Proportional Controller (SAPC) to the smart metering system, via the Octopus Home Product. With explicit consumer consent, sensor data would be transmitted via the smart meter network instead of relying on home networking and device-specific private cloud services, in order to mitigate security and privacy risks. This solution will provide real time data captured through the connected IoT devices, to increase options for the monitoring of “smart building” devices in the home. Octopus Home customers would for the first time see home environment alerts within the Octopus mobile app and be able to control an attached system via the smart meter network.