18.03.2010
New approaches for meter systems do not anymore only use information and communication technologies as an accepted addition of meters, but its functionality bases on the systematic exploitation of the communication infrastructure. This development already ranges to meters used in households, where remote reading is on the agenda ("smart metring" , communicative meter). It raises novel requirements to supporting software and to the security of systems and data.
The department 8.5 has evaluated a concept of a novel system for measuring load profiles which was developed in an industrial R&D project called "Clock-synchronised load profile meter". The new type of a meter does not contain functions to transmit and store measurement data in a usual complementary way, but these functions became an integral part of the distributed system architecture. The challenge was the evaluation of the conformity of the IT components with the respective normative and guiding documents like WELMEC Guide 7.2 and PTB requirement A 50.7 and to exert corresponding influence. Special problems were time synchronisation, backtracing to legal time, secure data transmission, authenticity and integrity of measurement data, display of measurement data and download of software.
The novel meter has recently received the type approval by the responsible department of PTB. A field trail in several federal states of Germany is currently carried out.