A survey and bibliometric analysis of different communication technologies available for smart meters

Abstract

A smart energy meter is one of the most significant smart grid products. The smart energy meter (SEM) is an advanced energy meter that collects data from end users' load devices, monitors energy usage, and then sends the data to the smart grid. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is used by smart energy meters to send real-time consumption data to utilities and customers. It is made possible by the Internet of Things (IoT), which expands the internet's capabilities to enable machine-to-machine or machine-to-server communication. Smart meters can communicate with each other using a variety of communication technologies. This paper presents a survey on communication technologies to determine the suitable technology based on a few parameters like cost-effectiveness, security, long-range, low power consumption, and data rate that are pre-requisite for smart meter communication. Firstly, a short literature survey is conducted to investigate the previous researches and challenges associated with communication technologies. The findings and future work of these articles are then summarized in a separate table for a clear understanding for the readers. Following that, an overview of communication technologies and their pros and cons are presented to understand critical aspects of each technology. A bibliometric analysis is also done to find the top countries, universities, and authors with greater incidence in this subject area worldwide by extracting citation data from Scopus and Web of Science. Besides, a comparison of major communication technologies is made in the discussion. Additionally, based on the parameters and literature reviewed, this paper suggests some suitable communication technologies for smart meters. It presents a model of a cost-effective hybrid communication system for smart metering and AMI. Finally, the possible issues and challenges related to communication technologies are discussed. Based on the challenges, several future research directions are also provided, which may lead to promising findings in the near future.