Bilfinger Berger Magazine 2/2009

AUSTRALIA’S PER CAPITA CO₂ EMISSIONS ARE THE WORLD’S HIGHEST. SMART METERS WILL SOON RAISE CONSUMERS’ ENERGY AWARENESS.

The electricity cables are draped above the street like giant strands of licorice. At each intersection the black cables are wrapped around ceramic insulators mounted on poles, before disappearing left and right among the roofs and chimneys. The way electricity is distributed in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn is typical for Australia: running the cables underground is not standard practice in many residential areas. Yet despite the old-fashioned appearance, the future has arrived: Jim Kafritsis from Bilfinger Berger Services is fixing a small box to the white-painted boarding on the front of one of the houses. The new electricity meter, half the size of a shoebox, can do more than just count kilowatt hours: This “smart meter” is designed to help save energy, cut costs and protect the environment. It might even make the construction of a few new power plants unnecessary. The government of Victoria also hopes that the meters will encourage consumers to become more environmentally responsible.

The installation of 2.5 million new meters began in September 2009, following a 2007 government decision that businesses and private households in the Australian state of Victoria should have their old meters replaced. At a cost of 2.5 billion Australian dollars (€1.4 billion), this is the largest single upgrade project to date in Victoria’s electricity infrastructure. Distributors CitiPower and Powercor Australia supply electricity to one million customers in Victoria, half of whom are having their new smart meters installed by Bilfinger Berger Services. “We have worked with Bilfinger Berger on a number of projects and this continues our relationship into a different and exciting area,” says Frank Salvatore, Metering Services Manager at Powercor. Bilfinger Berger has been active in Australia’s energy sector for 60 years. The changeover to smart meters in Victoria is scheduled to take four years. It’s a process that, from Bilfinger Berger Services’ perspective, requires not only logistics expertise, but also a great deal of care and tact when dealing with the customers. “

It’s not just about interrupting customers’ power supply. Changing the meter can reveal out of date house wiring in some cases,” explains Simon Pasinati who oversees the technical side of the project at Bilfinger Berger. Old fabric-insulated wiring can be unsafe and may have to be replaced—a problem that could affect a small proportion of houses, but which will come without warning and require immediate action and unforeseen expense. “Sooner or later, customers would have had to foot the bill for wiring upgrades anyway, but these costs may inadvertently be blamed on the meters,” says Pasinati.

The hardware at the Powercor Australia network control center is already state-of-the-art. Metering Services Manager Frank Salvatore points to the bank of LCD screens that collate the mass of customer data and consumption curves, and displays information on impending storms that could interrupt power supplies. “When the roll out is complete, our network and customer management systems will be automatically receiving and processing 4,000 percent more meter data than at present. We estimate we will be receiving 48 million meter readings per day,” says Frank Salvatore. “That’s a heck of a lot of data to process, evaluate, and pass on to the appropriate electricity retailer.”

DEREGULATED ENERGY MARKET
These smart meters are hard workers. The meter reader used to come four times a year to record each customer’s consumption. The new electronic meters transmit consumption data every 30 minutes. The meters also offer other benefits. They can be remotely turned on or off, when a customer moves in or out for example. And in future the meters will also be able to report a power outage immediately, allowing Powercor to respond almost at once. The meters are also harder to manipulate than the old ones and make it difficult to steal electricity—by tapping into the neighbor’s supply cable, for example. Almost as importantly, the government sees the meters as a way to empower consumers to manage their energy consumption. “

Australia’s energy market is one of the most deregulated in the world,” says Tim MacTaggart, operations manager of Bilfinger Berger Services in Melbourne. The producers, in Australia mainly coal-fired power stations, feed electricity into a pool and energy suppliers and traders bid for it, rather like a commodity exchange. Prices are therefore strongly dependent on supply and demand. On hot summer days when every air conditioning system is working overtime, buyers on the National Electricity Market (NEM) have to pay more for power than on a mild autumn night. Most suppliers currently charge their customers an average rate that takes account of both the high purchase prices in peak periods, as well as bargain buys at times when more energy is available.

COUNT MORE, PAY LESS
In future, tariffs will be able to take the precise time of consumption into account, to the benefit of price-conscious consumers. Electricity retailers are expected to offer monitors to accompany the smart meters which will show the customer exactly how much electricity is being used at any time and how much it is costing to watch the rugby match and do the washing, for instance. The Victorian government expects this will provide an incentive for many people to monitor, optimize and reduce their home electricity consumption.

The government hopes that in future every individual will be encouraged to switch on domestic appliances at times when demand is lower and power is cheaper. With demand in better balance, this could even make the construction of new power stations unnecessary.

“It may take a while before the benefits are felt,” observes Tim MacTaggart of Bilfinger Berger Services. “But in any event, it is a good thing for customers to be integrated into the generation of energy and the costs involved.” Thanks to Australia’s rich supplies of coal, electricity prices are low by global standards. According to a recent study, Australia has overtaken the USA as the leader in per capita CO₂ emissions, with every Australian producing 20.6 ton of carbon dioxide per year, twice as much as their German counterparts. “Smart meters can help raise our awareness of how we use our resources here in Australia— and help us to manage our response,” Tim MacTaggart believes.

(Text: Julica Jungehülsing, Photos: Tobias Titz)
Bilfinger Berger Magazine 2/2009