Integrated Smart Vending Solutions Accurate Metering Willfar - EMS

Product Description

Smart Vending Solution Integrated Energy Management Solution Willfar-EMS

 

Company Profile

Willfar Information Technology Co., Ltd.
- Established in 2004;
- Listed on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange in December 2019;
- Leading supplier of meter reading (AMI) equipment and operation service;
- The first company to develop "One DCU Reading Multi-meter" solution in China;
- The first company to have large-scale application of technologies and systems like "CPU smart-card Charge and Control", "One DCU Reading Multi-meter", LoRa-based RF Communication and "District Metering Area (DMA)”
 
Introduction
 

- AMI is a complete power network processing system for measuring, collecting, storing, analyzing and using user's electricity information. It consists of a smart meter installed at the customer's end, a measurement data management system located in the power company, and a communication system connecting them.

 

- The smart meter in the AMI can record the user's various power usage information according to a preset time interval (minutes, hours, etc.), and transmit the information to the data center through the communication network, and according to different requirements and purposes, such as user billing, fault response, and demand side management are processed and analyzed; information can also be sent to the meter, such as requiring more data or online software upgrades to the meter.

 

- AMI provides customers with complete measurement solutions, from metering, terminal, communication to data acquisition, processing, analysis and control, comprehensive metering and interconnection complete solutions.

 

- The overall goal is to provide a complete end-to-end solution to support the application requirements of the AMI project. The system was designed to support large-scale home metering systems covering applications such as MV/LV distribution, industrial and commercial areas, industrial parks, village or villa areas, buildings and single buildings.

 

- The system can assist power companies in processing of meter data collection, power supply changes, tariff switching, meter management, and power supply, as well as a set of solutions to integrate different types of energy metering equipment such as water, gas, and heat.

 

- The solution consists of metering equipment layer (electric meter, intelligent terminal), communication layer (NAN &WAN), Data center Application layer (HES,Vending etc), interface layer (CIM, Adapter).

 

 

Features

 

1. Automation of the Business Processes ,Accurate metering, automatic meter reading helps customer increase the revenue, reduce meter reading and operating costs, avoid data missing or incorrect recording in traditional manual meter reading

 

2. Multiple billing methods, multiple tariff rates, prepaid or postpaid management functions, provide users with more choices of electricity prices and services

 

3. The integration of multiple communication technologies has improved the success rate of data collection; also reduce the communication cost

 

4. Anti-tamper technology at the equipment layer and system level to effectively protect the revenue of the power company

 

5. Built on Open Standard: Multi-system integration, unified data provided by power companies, unified application portal, and improved management efficiency

 

6. Fast fault location and recovery, reduced incident reporting

 

7. Provides network level load measurement and system navigation, which will help utilities assess equipment health, optimize asset utilization and extend equipment life, optimize maintenance and operational management costs, accurately locate grid faults, improve grid planning, and identify power quality issues to detect and reduce tampering

 

Components of AMI System

 

1. System application layer:

- Software:

(1) Utility application systems- MDMS, CIS/Billing, Asset etc.

(2) Head-end system –HES UDIS

(3) Vending System –Prepaid Vending Management System PVMS

(4) Database

- IT Hardware

Database Server, Disk Array, Web Server, Application Server, Security Module, Router, Firewall, PC etc.

 

2. Network Layer

(1) WAN Network:

DCU & meter uplink communicate with HES system with GPRS /3G module

(2) NAN Network:

DCU communicate with the electricity meter nodes and data collector via the PLC network

Water/gas meter nodes communicate with electricity meter via the local RS485 network.

Or

Water/gas meter nodes communicate with Data Collector via the wireless LoRa network, then Data Collector communicate with DCU with PLC network.

 

3. Metering layer:

- Data Concentrator- DCU

- Data Collector- DC

- PLC Repeater unit

- Single-phase smart electricity meter

- Three-phase smart electricity meter

- Water/Gas meter

- Customer Interface Unit (CIU)

 

Function

 

1. HES

 

- Automate your customer processes data collection, change of tariff, blocking of customer installations etc to the greatest possible extent, bill related to actual consumption, and use short billing intervals.

 

- Implement various tariff models (several registers for active energy supplied/imported, time and/or load-dependent switchover) and acquire data on supplied/imported reactive energy. This ensures the greatest possible flexibility with regard to product design for an energy supplier. Optionally ripple control functionality can be introduced by using an independent load-switching device with integrated clock timer and two-way communication (changing of switching programs, spontaneous switching operations).

 

- Record the capacity utilization of individual line sections and transformers in order to optimize maintenance intervals, minimize line losses (e.g., by moving breaking points), and obtain additional data for planning expansion of the power network.

 

- Minimize down times by acquiring and diagnosing errors.

 

- Integrate small, decentralized energy generation plants into the distribution network for billing and automation purposes.

 

- Record and document the customer supply at the point of supply (in the meter) for the purpose of providing evidence and for planning the power network.

 

- Acquisition of all consumption data for electrical energy for tariff customers and special contract customers;

 

- Remote disconnection of customer connections (prepayment services, limitation of the maximum power consumption)

 

- Load-switching possibility for tariff and special contract customers.

 

- Recording and documentation of the quality of supply (meter: voltage tolerances, short-term failures, long-term failures; Power Quality according to EN 50160 through data concentrators in the transformer stations)

 

- Creation of an open communications platform for the integration of meters for other energy carriers/media (gas, district heating, water) and additional services (Home Automation) can be integrated.

 

- Recording of unauthorized power tapping and manipulations on the terminal devices (such as meters) Tele-control acquisition of the transformer stations and the distribution network infrastructure

 

2. Vending System

 

Willfar PVMS system provide utility a seamless energy prepayment solution. It include functions of archive management, New / Change account, unified vending, tariff module, arrears and deduction scheme management, customized statistical data and report, system management etc. With AMI network the remote meter connect/ disconnect, parameters online reading and setting functions also provided.

 

PVMS modules can be added or customized according to customer needs or integration with other systems. It provide multi vending channel includes PC POS, mobile POS, SMS, scratch card etc., improves revenue cash flow, improves the management efficiency, and reduces operation costs.

 

3. DCU

- File management and status maintenance.

- Execute the task list from the HES system.

- Collect register data of the meter periodically and store it locally.

- Monitor alarms of meter and concentrator itself and push to HES.

- Provide Interface to the HES system for data exchange.

- Provide transparent access from the HES to the meter.

 

4. Data Collector

- DC200 links with DCU platform through PLC network. While it communicates with electricity meters through local RS485 technology and water meter via RF LoRa technology. The DCU serves as the main node in the PLC network, and DC200 are sub nodes. Main node is responsible for managing the network, including sub node registration, network path optimization,etc..Sub nodes receive commands from main node and make response to main node through power line network.

 

- The DC200 provide the WIFI interface for debug and setting/reading parameters via AT command.

 

5. Smart Electricity Meter

- Billing the power periodically and store it in the load profile, protected with non-volatile memory.

- Record power quality event such as power loss, overvoltage, under voltage.

- Record grid status and alarm information.

- Remotely downloadable scheme for tariff rate switching.

- Remote or local connect/disconnect

 

6. Smart Water Meter

- Mechanical Wheel Indicator and LCD Display

- Support RS485 communication

- Support STS Prepaid and post-paid mode

- AMI function (Remote Reading and remote valve control.)

- Insufficient water warning

- Self-defined overdraft

- Purchase limitation

- Holidays and friendly time Management

- Non switch-off during off-duty

- Monthly free consumption water

- Anti-tamper detection

- Security function

- Time Logger (Recharge, Open/close valve, Fraud and safety events.)

- History data, 188 Hours/60 Days/24 Months freeze data.

- Replaceable batteries

- IP67

 

7. CIU

- The Customer interface unit (CIU) is mainly used for the TOKEN input of the STS prepaid system and can also quickly query the meter data and information by means of a short code. The LCD and LED of CIU are able to indicate meter status and alarms.

- The CIU mainly supports internal communication modules such as FSK RF/FSK

PLC/LoRa RF.

 

Parameter & Task Configuration

Parameter &Task	Configuration Description
Power Limitation	The system supports the power overload trip function. When the meter detects that the instantaneous power of any phase exceeds the load threshold and exceeds the load trip judgment time, the meter automatically pulls on. If the line power returns to normal and the overload trip judgment time is exceeded, the meter will automatically close.
Demand Limitation	The system supports the demand limit function. The meter can set the two-level demand limit threshold. When the power consumption (remaining credit) reaches the two-level alarm threshold, the meter will limit the user's power consumption according to different levels to encourage users to pay attention to their power consumption (Remaining credit) and pay in time.
Load Management	The system supports complex load current limit management strategies. The system supports up to 8 daily tables and three levels of current limit threshold settings. It supports up to 10 time periods and 5 script execution plans per day. Each time frame the system user can set different script execution schemes to achieve power limitation, each script corresponds to activate the current limit threshold and connect or disconnect the meter internal or outside relay. The system supports parameter setting such as maximum connecting times, connecting delay, penalty time, and scheme switching delay time;
Tariff Management	The system supports prepaid and postpaid mode settings. The system can set the TOU tariff rate and step rate, the tariff effective time, the hoarding threshold, the alarm and the relay trip threshold to the meter, issue the tariff effective command to the meter, and the meter perform the alarm generation and the relay trip action according to the threshold. The system support to issue the control parameters and control commands, the relay trip action should be record in log. The system supports the alternate tariff rate setting, which can be switched separately at the specified date and time; the system supports friendly time setting, supports the under-overrun threshold setting, the friendly threshold should be larger or equal to the non-friendly threshold value.
Scheduled Data Reading	The system user prepares scheduled automatic reading task according to the requirements of different power users and application services, including task name, task type, collection group, data collection item, task execution start and end time, collection period, execution priority, and re-reading times, and manage the execution of various collection tasks.
Power Quality	Undervoltage, overvoltage, power outage, power factor over limit, etc.
Demand	Demand cycle, slip cycle
Clock	Time zone, Calendar Clock

 

Communication Interface

The two way communication of the AMI system mainly supports the following types of information:

 

- Device registration

- Operation parameter configuration, such as serial number, address, scheduled task, etc.

- Business parameter configuration, such as time tariff rate, metering billing scheme, etc.

- On demand reading, time synchronization, remote relay control, etc.

- Scheduled data reading (upstream based)

- Remote upgrade firmware (downstream)

 

Situation

 

For clients required multiple meter reading and data collection;

For residents and large amount users, commercial metering purpose;

For traditional manual meter reading transit to smart metering (automatic meter reading) scenario;

For clients required demand management.