Domestic Meters Research Articles

From Pressure to Water Consumption: Exploiting High-Resolution Pressure Data to Investigate the End Uses of Water

HighlightsA method to investigate water consumption based on pressure data is developed.The method exploits the headloss-flowrate equation to obtain water-consumption data.The method is validated on a real case study, resulting in an average error of 2.3%.Limitations affecting the installation of domestic flow meters are overcome.Insights into the features of individual water-consumption events are provided.

Conformity assessment of domestic and commercial gas meters for usage with hydrogen enriched natural gas and pure hydrogen

A considerable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions may be achieved if hydrogen is injected to the European gas networks, but accuracy of billing must be ensured. This paper presents the results for accuracy testing on seven domestic and one commercial gas meter. The domestic meters were calibrated by two different laboratories, at atmospheric pressure using various gases including hydrogen, methane and mixtures of hydrogen with methane. A third laboratory performed calibrations on a rotary gas meter with hydrogen and hydrogen/natural gas mixtures at two test pressures: 9 and 16 bar.For the domestic meter tests, consistent results were obtained from both facilities. Most meters tested met the accuracy requirements of the applicable standards. Whilst the error curves differed for each test gas, errors for hydrogen or hydrogen/methane blends were comparable with the other test gases. For the calibrations of the rotary gas meter, differences in the error curves between natural gas and the hydrogen/natural gas mixture were smaller than the measurement uncertainty of the test facility and therefore considered metrologically insignificant.

Estimate measurement errors of household water meters using a large amount of on-site data feedback

Water meter measurement error is considered as one important component of non-revenue water by International Water Association. Its magnitude depends combinedly on users’ consumption behaviors (intake spectrum) and metrological characteristics of water meters (meter error curve). Most published researches have only analyzed the meter error curves without taking the users’ consumption behaviors into consideration. This study developed a practical approach by using the relative difference chart of master-meters and sub-meters groupings (i.e., RM-μz chart) to identify average metering errors for a major water utility company in Taiwan. About 120,000 sets of “master-meter and sub-meter grouping” data of Taipei Water Department were analyzed. The approach successfully estimated average metering errors of its 99.6% domestic meters (around 1.6 million water meters), the results are 9.9, 6.1, and 10.0% less than the actual water consumption recorded by the sub-meters, master-meters, and direct-meters, respectively.

Short Term Load Forecasting under extensive Power Outages using Domestic Energy Meter Load Profile; A case study

Short-term load forecasting (STLF) is an obligatory and vibrant part of power system planning and dispatching. It is utilized for short and running targets in power system planning. Electricity consumption has nonlinear patterns due to its reliance on factors like time, weather, geography, culture, and some random and individual events. This research work emphasizes STLF through utilized load profile data from domestic energy meter and forecasts it by Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and Cascaded Forward Back Propagation Neural Network (CFBP) techniques. First, simple regression statistical calculations were used for prediction, later the model was improved by using a neural network tool. The performance of both models compared with Mean Absolute Percent Error (MAPE). The MAPE error for MLR was observed as 47% and it was reduced to 8.9% for CFBP.

Effect of external DC field on current transformers with amorphous and nanocrystalline cores

Nanocrystalline and amorphous stress-annealed and field annealed tapes are used for cores of DC-tolerant current transformers. We analyze the influence of external DC field of arbitrary direction on the performance of these transformers. For the realistic core shapes the demagnetization is high, which leads to effective external field suppression. However, DC tolerant transformers are tolerant to the DC component of the current and not to the external field - they can be saturated by 30 mT field from permanent magnet. This means that for the practical applications in domestic energy meters some external shielding is required.

Study of domestic water consumption in intermittent supply of the Riberas de Sacramento sector in Chihuahua, Mexico

Abstract User water demand can be met in intermittent water supply systems, and normally it is met if they have sufficient capacity to store water in their homes to be used in the hours when it is not supplied from the public pipe network. The situation in many intermittent water supply systems is that they have enough water to cover the demand of the users but are supplying it intermittently, and the challenge is to achieve a transfer from intermittent to continuous supply. If the delivery of water is continuous, which supplies drinking water 24/7, it covers not only the basic needs of the user, but all the needs for water they may have. The present study was carried out using smart domestic water meters to obtain consumption information in an intermittently supplied pilot sector. The electromagnetic meters record the water flow through pulses and generate consumption information, which gives us the consumption pattern in volume of water and in the time it is used. During the study, multivariate statistical methods were applied to obtain information from the domestic meters and to identify, as realistically as possible, the consumption of drinking water and the relationship between consumption and specific characteristics of the users and thus anticipate future demand. The results showed a close relationship between consumption and the size of the residence. The most influential factors were the number of bathrooms and the number of occupants. A direct relationship between the pressure and the volume supplied was presumed at the beginning of the study but the opposite was found. Equipment was installed to measure the pressure in the network at the time of establishing the continuous supply of drinking water. The multivariate analysis provides a selection of the most important variables that influence and explain the behavior of the water use and consumption pattern, with the operation determined by the operating agency.

A unique test facility for calibration of domestic flow meters under dynamic flow conditions

In the early nineties a hot water test facility was planned and constructed for calibration and testing of volume and flow meters at the National Volume Measurement Laboratory at RISE (formerly SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden). The main feature of the test facility is the capability to measure flow in a wide temperature and flow range with very high accuracy. The objective of the project, which was initiated in 1989, was to design equipment for calibration of flow meters with stable flow and temperature conditions.After many years of international debate whether static testing is adequate to represent the later more dynamic application of domestic water meters, the EMPIR project 17IND13 Metrology for real-world domestic water metering (“Metrowamet”) was launched in 2018. The project investigates the influence of dynamic flow testing on the measurement accuracy of different types of domestic flow meters. One of the main objectives of the project is the development of infrastructure to carry out dynamic flow measurements. The existing test facility at RISE was at the time of construction one of the best hot and cold-water test facilities in the world. Due to the Metrowamet project the test facility has been upgraded to meet the needs of an infrastructure for dynamic flow investigations. The first findings from dynamic consumption profile measurements are reported in this paper.

Development of an experimental apparatus and a data analysis protocol for the test of hydrogen volume and flow meters in controlled environmental conditions

The decarbonization of the residential sector is fundamental for energy transition. In this context, it is promising the introduction of hydrogen in natural gas networks in specific hydrogen districts. Accordingly, hydrogen meters are needed for accounting the fuel consumptions. The topic of this work is the development and construction of an experimental apparatus for testing safely hydrogen volume and flow meters up to 24 m3/h (referred to standard conditions) in controlled environmental conditions, between -25 and +55 °C (and beyond). The apparatus realized can test up to four volume and flow meters in a climatic chamber while processing air or pure hydrogen or methane. Methane-hydrogen mixtures can be tested connecting simply bottles with synthetic blends. The aim is to verify the measurement accuracy of the meters under test. A dedicated data analysis protocol featuring statistical process control is developed to monitor the stability of the system during the test. It exploits statistical indicators representing the autocorrelation, the normality of residuals of the mean value and the lag plot. The apparatus is realized, and it complies with the leakage limits set by indications in literature. A new ultrasonic domestic meter is tested in the apparatus. It has been developed by Pietro Fiorentini S.p.A. in the framework of the Hy4Heat project. Its error trends measured at all temperatures comply with the limit of 3.5% between 0.12 and 2 m3/h and 2% between 2 and 20 m3/h, as imposed by legislations.

Analysis of Failure Mechanism of Smart Meter Capacitance

In practical applications, smart meters will fail, and even have batch quality problems. In addition to the sampling inspection of the arrival quality of smart meters, the analysis of the failure mechanism of smart meters has become an important and long-term task. This article mainly analyzes the component capacitance commonly used in smart meters, and analyses the failure of chip multilayer ceramic dielectric capacitors from appearance observation, electrical parameter testing, metallographic slicing, and at the same time from electrolytic appearance observation, electrical parameter testing, X- RAY, SEM and EDS for failure analysis. The results of failure mechanism research not only help to improve the reliability of the domestic energy meter manufacturing level, but also can save energy meter maintenance and transformation costs, and have very important practical significance for the construction of smart grids.

Prospects for technical and technological support of milk production based on smart technologies

Annotation Purpose. To generalize the world experience of milk production technical and technological support in the context prospects for use smart technologies. Methods. The method of information-logical analysis of domestic and foreign scientific and technical information sources on the current state of technical and technological milk production support is applied. Results. The components of technical and technological support are systematized and the structure of the conceptual model of the biotechnical system of milk production on the basis of smart technologies is developed. It is noted about the creation of a domestic milk meter based on a capacitive flow sensor, developed a layout scheme of automatic system for individual milk yield accounting on the basis of domestic equipment for machine milking. The results of industrial inspection of the adaptive milking machine on the basis of the portion test of milk of weight type are given. Conclusions. The world experience of technical and technological support is generalized and the structure of the conceptual model of biotechnical system of milk production is developed, which allows to achieve realization of genetic potential of cow productivity at minimum and sufficient levels of capital investments and operating costs. Automatic means of determining the intensity of milk flow have been developed, which can become a universal basis for domestic adaptive milking machines and smart control systems for dairy farms technological processes. Keywords: automation of milking, adaptive milking machine, biotechnical milk production system, milk flow sensor, machine milking, individual milk accounting.

PFC‐SEPIC converter‐fed half‐bridge LLC resonant converter for e‐bike charging applications

In today's market, electric bikes (e-bikes) are becoming exceedingly popular due to their smaller size, ease of domestic charging and cost-friendly alternative in the category of electric vehicles. So, there is a need for the development of a power factor corrected (PFC) private off-board charger (OBC) to cater to the need of the domestic charging of e-bikes. Traditionally, e-bike chargers powered by a domestic meter are realised by a non-PFC OBC with a power rating of 500–700 W. Such converters draw harmonic currents at very high crest factor and affect the life and performance of other domestic appliances. A private OBC which derives its power from the domestic supply for charging the battery of an e-bike is proposed. The charger has two stages, i.e. the PFC stage for input current shaping and the DC–DC stage for regulating the battery charging voltage and charging current. The PFC stage is based on the single-ended primary inductance converter and the DC–DC stage is based on the inductor inductor capacitor (LLC) resonant converter. A 570 W, 57.6V, 10 A prototype is built using digital signal processor (TMS320F28035) to evaluate and validate its performance for charging a lithium-ion battery pack.

Methodology of domestic gas meters metrological control with limited work flow range

The analysis of the current regulatory documents governing the types, conditions and technical means of domestic gas meters metrological characteristics checking during their initial and periodic verification was carried out. The expediency of monitoring the domestic meters metrological characteristics with using of natural gas was substantiated. A new patent-protected methodology has been developed for the experimental-calculation method of metrological assessment of domestic meters with a limited work flow range, which ensures the implementation of dismountable metrological verification of gasmeters in the entire range of operating flow was work out. It provides of the experimental determination of the gasmeters error at the minimal work flow rate and the flow rate, which corresponds to 20% of the maximum, as well as the calculated determination of the gasmeter error at the maximum flow rate using statistically established patterns of change in the errors of domestic gasmeters during their operation with specification of the size and model of the meter. This approach makes it possible to carry out metrological studies of gas meters using natural gas and at the same time without dismantling at the place of operation. The possibilities of applying the proposed methodology for dismantling metrological control of domestic gasmeters during the operation of calibration facilities in the air were revealed, for which the requirements for the upper range of operating flows were reduced. The results of testing the developed methodology for metrological control of domestic gas meters using a limited range of operating flows, which confirmed the correctness of the methodological approach for its practical application. The expediency of developing and approving the relevant regulatory document for the practical implementation of the developed methodology for the metrological research of domestic gas meters, which will comply with the regulatory documents of Ukraine and ensure the implementation of metrological control of natural gas meters in operating conditions, was substantiated.

Methodology and software for measuring the specific differences of the calculated volumes of natural gas

The most accurate measurement of natural gas volumes by domestic meters can be achieved only in case when the gas parameters (pressure, temperature) are maximally approximated to the standard conditions. Otherwise, it is necessary to perform additional measurements of these parameters, but most domestic gas meters do not include the measuring instruments to obtain these quantities; or to carry out approximate mathematical calculations, which from the point of view of metrology is unreliable.The purpose of the work is mathematical modeling of specific differences of the accounted volumes of natural gas and development of methods for their measurement.The methodology of measurement by indirect methods of changing the volumes of natural gas in gas supply systems of residential buildings with domestic gas meters is developed. The dependence is obtained for estimating the specific differences of natural gas volumes in domestic consumers by measuring the volume of gas by a household gas meter, the temperature parameters of the air in the room near the gas pipeline and the gas and air meter. The physical quantities of the ambient air parameters are identified, which are determined by the method of direct measurement, and based on the obtained results, a methodology for estimating the metrological characteristics of the indirect measurement of the specific differences of natural gas volumes is developed.The results obtained by theoretical development are confirmed by experimental studies on a certified calibration setup operating on natural gas.The results obtained can be the basis for reviewing the existing and developing new regulatory documents for determining the specific differences in natural gas volumes recorded by domestic gas meters. Prospects for further research are the development of the structure of the information measurement system and devices for the determination of the specific losses of natural gas in house systems of gas supply.

Performance Analysis of Ageing Single-Jet Water Meters for Measuring Residential Water Consumption

Single-jet meters are one of the most frequently used domestic meters that can be found in water distribution systems. Like any other water meter technology, they have significant metrological limitations that prevent them, even if recently installed, from measuring all water consumption of a domestic customer. After installation, their metrological characteristics evolve depending on the particular design of the meters and their actual working conditions in the field. This work presents a comprehensive set of tests to determine the initial and after installation weighted error of two types of domestic single-jet water meters. Three non-linear degradation models have been derived from the tests results. These models consider age, totalised volume, or both parameters simultaneously as drivers of the weighted error. The results show that even though the construction of the two examined meters is similar, they have been working under comparable operational conditions and measuring water of the same quality, there is a significant difference in the performance between both types. This result highlights the need to conduct individual analyses for each meter type and the impossibility of generalizing conclusions on how the weighted error could evolve over time.

Using smart meters to estimate low‐voltage losses

Losses on low-voltage networks are often substantial. For example, in the UK they have been estimated as being 4% of the energy supplied by low-voltage networks. However, the breakdown of the losses to individual conductors and their split over time are poorly understood as generally only the peak demands and average loads over several months have been recorded. The introduction of domestic smart meters has the potential to change this. How domestic smart meter readings can be used to estimate the actual losses is analysed. In particular, the accuracy of using 30 min readings compared with 1 min readings, and how this accuracy could be improved, were investigated. This was achieved by assigning the data recorded by 100 smart meters with a time resolution of 1 min to three test networks. Smart meter data from three sources were used in the investigation. It was found that 30 min resolution data underestimated the losses by between 9 and 24%. By fitting an appropriate model to the data, it was possible to reduce the inaccuracy by ∼50%. Having a smart meter time resolution of 10 min rather than 30 gave little improvement to the accuracy.

Measurement concept for efficient planning of distribution grids

This study presents a measurement concept that is designed to provide or validate input parameters for network planning guidelines in the distribution grid, mainly low-voltage (LV) level. Therefore, the authors conceived a hardware setup to measure completely the LV distribution of a transformer station and partly within the subordinated grid. It consists of three types of measurement devices, namely power quality analysers, four-phase power meters, and smart domestic supply meters. A substantial part of the concept is an integrated data architecture that also collects existing company data about the physical distribution network and its customers. This will be used for a statistical analysis of effective usage of the network equipment. A comprehensive set of questions have been identified. The hardware rollout and software integration are in progress. First results and experiences are shown on a qualitative basis.

Specific Errors of Serial Domestic Light Meters in Measuring the Radiation of LED Source

Specific Errors of Serial Domestic Light Meters in Measuring the Radiation of LED Source

Electricity consumption and household characteristics: Implications for census-taking in a smart metered future

This paper assesses the feasibility of determining key household characteristics based on temporal load profiles of household electricity demand. It is known that household characteristics, behaviours and routines drive a number of features of household electricity loads in ways which are currently not fully understood. The roll out of domestic smart meters in the UK and elsewhere could enable better understanding through the collection of high temporal resolution electricity monitoring data at the household level. Such data affords tremendous potential to invert the established relationship between household characteristics and temporal load profiles. Rather than use household characteristics as a predictor of loads, observed electricity load profiles, or indicators based on them, could instead be used to impute household characteristics. These micro level imputed characteristics could then be aggregated at the small area level to produce ‘census-like’ small area indicators. This work briefly reviews the nature of current and future census taking in the UK before outlining the household characteristics that are to be found in the UK census and which are also known to influence electricity load profiles. It then presents descriptive analysis of a large scale smart meter-like dataset of half-hourly domestic electricity consumption before reviewing the correlation between household attributes and electricity load profiles. The paper then reports the results of multilevel model-based analysis of these relationships. The work concludes that a number of household characteristics of the kind to be found in UK census-derived small area statistics may be predicted from particular load profile indicators. A discussion of the steps required to test and validate this approach and the wider implications for census taking is also provided.

K-means based load estimation of domestic smart meter measurements

A load estimation algorithm based on k-means cluster analysis was developed. The algorithm applies cluster centres – of previously clustered load profiles – and distance functions to estimate missing and future measurements. Canberra, Manhattan, Euclidean, and Pearson correlation distances were investigated. Several case studies were implemented using daily and segmented load profiles of aggregated smart meters. Segmented profiles cover a time window that is less than or equal to 24h. Simulation results show that Canberra distance outperforms the other distance functions. Results also show that the segmented cluster centres produce more accurate load estimates than daily cluster centres. Higher accuracy estimates were obtained with cluster centres in the range of 16–24h. The developed load estimation algorithm can be integrated with state estimation or other network operational tools to enable better monitoring and control of distribution networks.

Mapping household direct energy consumption in the United Kingdom to provide a new perspective on energy justice

Targets for reductions in carbon emissions and energy use are often framed solely in terms of percentage reductions. However, the amount of energy used by households varies greatly, with some using considerably more than others and, therefore, potentially being able to make a bigger contribution towards overall reductions. Using two recently released UK datasets based on combined readings from over 70 million domestic energy meters and vehicle odometers, we present exploratory analyses of patterns of direct household energy usage.Whilst much energy justice work has previously focussed on energy vulnerability, mainly in low consumers, our findings suggest that a minority of areas appear to be placing much greater strain on energy networks and environmental systems than they need. Households in these areas are not only the most likely to be able to afford energy efficiency measures to reduce their impacts, but are also found to have other capabilities that would allow them to take action to reduce consumption (such as higher levels of income, education and particular configurations of housing type and tenure). We argue that these areas should therefore be a higher priority in the targeting of policy interventions.