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Energy Metering in a Deregulated Environment

William Amuna
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ABSTRACT
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Metering is very essential and accurate metering could determine the profitability of any
company in the energy sector. The power sector in Ghana will soon be deregulated. At
present there is the Volta River Authority (VRA), which is mainly responsible for the generation
and transmission of electricity and a few Independent Power Producers (IPP’
S) and metering
is simple and straightforward.

This scenario will definitely change with deregulation. This paper seeks to evaluate the
present metering systems in the Transmission and Distribution networks in Ghana, evaluate
their adequacy or otherwise and see what changes need to be done under deregulation.

The paper would examine the following:

• Metering in the Transmission System (Open access system)

• Metering in the Distribution System
• Proposals for effective metering under Deregulation.

KEYWORDS: Energy Metering, Deregulation, Telemetering, Distribution.

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PRESENT METERING SYSTEM IN GHANA
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Type of Customers
The present system is such that the VRA supplies power in bulk to the Electricity Company of
Ghana (ECG) - a distribution company, a number of mines, Volta Aluminum Company (Valco),
which operates an aluminium smelter and other industries (Bulk Supply Customers). The
ECG supplies power to its customers namely industrial, commercial and residential customers.
Type of Metering
Generally the generating stations use secondary connected feraris energy meters of Class 1.0
accuracy and accuracy of bulk supply meters range from class 0.2 to class 1.0. and the
distribution system utilizes meters of Class 2.0 accuracy. The VRA network is interconnected
in the east with the network of Togo-Benin through a double circuit 161kV line and in the west
with the network of La Cote d' Ivoire through a 225 kV transmission line (tie-line) on which
static energy meters of Class 0.2 accuracy are employed for metering.

Type of Meters
Energy meters currently in use are mainly Ferraris meters, some of which have maximum
demand indication whilst others do not have. Recently, digital meters have been introduction
in both transmission and distribution networks. Time of use meters are not being employed
but there has been the introduction of prepaid meters in the distribution system.

Type of billing
Valco, tie-line, ECG and Togo-Benin are billed solely on the energy (kWh) consumed.
Whereas the mines and other industries are billed by both the energy consumed and the
maximum demand. There is also a poor power factor surcharge that is slapped on industries
operating on poor power factor.

In the distribution network, residential and commercial customers are billed by the energy
(kWh) consumed. There are however some customers without meters who are billed on
“estimated energy consumed”(Flat Rate).

Sources of metering errors

Inaccurate metering can lead to loss of revenue, wrong values of Transmission and
Distribution losses and wrong data for planning purposes.
The possible sources of errors in metering are
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• Low class meters (accuracy class and capabilities).
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• Low
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• Unmatched instrument transformer/meter accuracies.

• Lack of supervision of meters resulting in unregistered energy when meter is faulty.
• Drift in accuracy of Ferraris meters.

DEREGULATED ENVIRONMENT
Under deregulation, the structure of the power system in Ghana would change. Some of the
anticipated changes include:

• The existence of Independent power producers (IPP) in addition to the VRA.

• The possible introduction of a meter company that may be a competitive company or owned
by a utility to provide billing services.
• The introduction of local distribution companies.
• The possible introduction of energy services companies to provide energy retailing services.
• Open access to transmission system.

Under this regime, there will be concerns for the amount of energy being injected by an IPP
into the grid, the amount of energy being wheeled, costing of energy, frequency and power
factor concerns, line loading, time-of-use metering (tou), etc. The companies will be in
competition and the ability of a company to stride on will depend largely on accurate billing
and cost reduction techniques that it will employ.

PROPOSED METERING SYSTEMS:

Generation systems:

The IPPs will need high precision metering to measure the amount of energy they produce. It
is recommended that they use Digital meters of the following specifications.

• Accuracy Class - 0.2/kWh, 1.0/kVarh.

• Mode of Measurement - Bi-directional.
• Demand measuring capabilities.
• Date and time stamping.
• Tariff programming capabilities.
• Time -of- use capabilities.
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• Pulse output for Telemetering. – Automatic meter reading capability.
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• Load
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• Self-Supervision capabilities to alert when there is a problem with the meter.

In order to achieve the desired results of measurements, the instrument transformers for
metering should have accuracies of Class 0.2 to match the energy meters.

IPPs should also consider the possibility of back-up metering and put in place check meters to
the primary meters. The check meters could also be used for billing when the primary meters
are faulted. Check meters should have a separate potential transformer (PT) supply.

Transmission system

The energy meters recommended for use by the Grid Company to meter its BSP Customers
(Bulk Supply point meters) should have the following specifications:
• Type - Digital
• Accuracy Class 0.2 to 0.5 (kWh) 2.0 kVarh)
• Mode of measurement - Single/Bi-directional
• Demand measurement Capabilities
• Date and time stamping
• Tariff capabilities
• Time of Use capabilities
• Pulse output for telemetering
• Load profile capabilities.
• Self-supervision.
• Instrument transformer accuracies should match that of the meters.

Distribution systems

Specifications of meters for Industrial Customers should be similar to those of the transmission
network. For residential customers, the one-household-one-meter policy should be adopted to
ensure that every customer is metered. If Ferraris meters are to be used, it is recommended
that meters with lifetime of 25-30 years be used to reduce cost. These meters should have
suspension magnetic bearings. Existing traditional Ferraris meters could also be retrofitted
with the addition of pulse generators if automatic meter reading (AMR) is required. Though its
initial cost is high, Prepaid energy metering should be encouraged since it will significantly
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to
improve the cash flow of utilities and also reduce the non-payment of bills by consumers.
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Generally,
c u-tr a c k the accuracy class of such prepaid meters should be from class 2.0. The situation c u-tr a c k

where some customers do not have meters and are billed by estimated energy consumed has
no place in a deregulated environment except when a proper energy audit is undertaken on
the customer.

Electronic meters

Electronic meters are preferred to Ferraris meters because in addition to recording energy and
demand, they could have features like power factor measurements, Date and Time stamping,
multi-tariff structures and would normally be equipped with communication capabilities to allow
for AMR. They hardly drift in accuracy.

Telemetering

A telemetering system should be put in place by the Meter Company so that all energy data
can be acquired at the end of each day. This will provide means of knowing energy generated
by the various IPP’
s and energy used by consumers. A telemetering system is very expensive
to put in place but the VRA already has one in place [1]. Steps should be taken to make it fully
functional so that it can be used. It is advisable that all energy meters have an integrating
period of 15 minutes to conform with the existing energy meters used by the Volta River
Authority

Meter checks

The accuracy of the energy meters in use should be checked to ensure that accuracies have
not drifted. It is recommended that meters (except residential meters) be checked once every
year as is done now in VRA and ECG. Standards used for the checks should be acceptably
high and the standards should be checked every three years. The VRA has the K2005
standard of accuracy 0.01 that can be used to check other standards for a fee.
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COST IMPLICATIONS OF NEW METERING SYSTEM
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All this discussion will be of no use if the cost implications of the suggested schemes are not
analysed. The most expensive meters will be that of the Class 0.2 meter. The cost of these
meters is estimated at about $4000 for the type of meters in use by VRA.

The cost of the other meters recommended in this paper will be in the range of $50 to $3000.
Depending on the energy consumed by the Customer, the payback period for instituting these
schemes will range from 3 months to
36 months. For instance, VRA changed a class 1.0 meter to a class 0.2 digital meter and
there was an increase in energy registration of 0.8%.

Sample calculation

Energy as registered by BSP meters at Takoradi for the month of February 2000 was
21841200 kWh. The increase in energy registered, which is 0.8% of this total energy
would be 174729.6 kWh. This is equivalent to $4150 at present tariff levels. The cost
of a class 0.2 Energy meter is about $4000.

Typical meter prices

PHASE DESCRIPTION CLASS PRICE

Single Electromechanical 2 $50
Single Digital (Pre-payment) 2 $80
Three Electromechanical 1 $100
Three Digital (Direct connection) 1 $339
Three Digital (CT connection) 1 $237
Three Digital 0.5 $583
Three Digital (combimeter) 0.2 $4000

BENEFITS
- will provide reliable data for forecasting, scheduling and capacity planning
- Reduced cost on meter maintenance
- Improved return on investment
- More accurate system loss values.
- Improved security of metering installations
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CONCLUSION
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In conclusion, it can be said that energy companies in a deregulated environment should

ensure high accuracy metering since for very large loads, a small change in accuracy could
mean a large loss of energy registered and hence revenue to the utility. For all types of
customers, cost/benefit analyses can be done to ascertain the financial implications of
installing a higher accuracy meter.

At the design stage of projects, Instrument transformer accuracy classes should be chosen
such that they will match well with energy meter accuracies in order to obtain more accurate
and effective metering.

It should also be noted that, the Ferraris meters generally drift in accuracy with time and digital
meters, which have constant accuracies, are recommended for use by utilities, especially in a
deregulated environment.

REFERENCES

1. William Amuna, J Amoako-Baah, "Automatic Meter Reading, The VRA Experience", Arab
Electricity 97 Proc., Bahrain.
2. Sam Chungyang, " Metering in China", [Link].
3. Deregulation in the Power Industry –Notes from Penn State University Lectures.
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Biographical Information
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Speaker: William Amuna c u-tr a c k

Position: System Metering and Instrumentation Engineer

Company: Volta River Authority
Country: Ghana

William Amuna graduated with a [Link]. (Hons) Electrical Engineering degree from the
University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana in 1985.

He has worked for several years as a Protection and Control Engineer with the Volta River
Authority and at present he is the System Metering and Instrumentation Engineer. He also
undertook a course in Advanced Power Systems Engineering at the Pennsylvania State
University College of Engineering, Pennsylvania, USA.
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Company Background Information
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Company: Volta River Authority c u-tr a c k

Country: Ghana