What Brings Smartness - Smart Meter or Smart Analytics?

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is all about connecting millions of residential smart meters with the head end system (HES) on a 2-way communication network. Smart meters have a lot of data and because of their huge number the overall data throughput can become unmanageable. Hence, which data needs to be communicated when and for what ultimate use, becomes the most pertinent question. This question can be answered if each AMI use case is mapped to the targeted problem of power distribution. Based on this, the AMI data and its communication interval can be smartly selected to keep the data throughput under control and prevent redundant data communication, storage and its analysis. This exercise has a significant impact on the network performance and its cost. This paper aims to address the issues of operational inefficiency of power distribution and how these could be resolved by analytics based on the result-oriented, accurate and timely data. Published work, case studies and inputs from experts are referred to and finally a set of important data profiles are suggested with innovative features meant to address India specific issues.