Replacement of electromechanical meters by electronic

Replacement of electromechanical meters by electronic, despite the resistance of many consumers, has generated highly positive results for energy distributors, especially those related to loss and theft of energy. A pioneer in this process, Broad, Rio de Janeiro, controlled by Endesa, has invested $ 350 million in modernizing the network and has established a savings of $ 250 million a year by reducing losses and theft.

Since the Energy Company of Brasilia (CEB), still under state control, automated measurement of 1,800 major consumers of the Federal District, including the Presidential Palace and all ministries. With the measure, reduced by 1 percentage point the level of losses in 2009.

The meters are electronic chips that store and remotely send information to each customer to the central data distributor. The system also allows, for example, that the company cut or reconnect the supply remotely without the need to shift from team.

Covering more than 70% of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Broad was one of the pioneers in the exchange of energy meters at low voltage. The tests were approved by the National Agency of Electrical Energy (Aneel) in 2005, when the average energy loss in the state was 25%. "In some regions, the theft of energy, the 'cats', reached 80%," says André Moragas, Director of Institutional Relations of Broad. "With the new electronic meters, fell to 2% in some regions. Currently, the state average is 20%. "About 300 thousand of the distributor are today measuring electronics.

Prior to use the new meters, Broad had to reshape the grid increasing the secondary network (low voltage) to the level of the primary network (medium voltage), using a cable pre-assembled. Both now are 10 feet above the ground, which makes the illegal connections.

Moraga explains that, despite initial resistance from customers, the process has been consolidated and, in 2010, will be expanded to another 50 thousand points. "We work with two platforms: one technological and other education for citizenship," he said.

Resistance

Luiz Carlos Rusky, manager of Measurement and Control of CEB also hopes to find some resistance in the second stage of the process of replacing meters, which will involve 6,000 points that consume 3000 kWh on average per month. "In this segment, are found many irregularities," said Rusky. In the first stage of the process, which involved the major consumers of high voltage, invested $ 3 million. In the next step will be applied around $ 10 million. "We are doing the bidding for the installation of equipment already purchased," said Rusky.

According to data supplied from the CEB, the average return on investment will be seven months for the group of six thousand units. From the analysis of available data in the first 18 months after the installation of new measuring equipment in 349 consumers, we found the addition of added energy on the order of 70 GWh, which corresponds to the increase in net revenues from $ 14 million . The generation of extra revenue expected in five years is $ 126 million.

The measurement electronics is one of the components of so-called intelligent networks (smart grid), technologies involved directly in the concept of energy efficiency. According to Cyro Bocuzzi, an expert on the subject and ex-vice president of Eletropaulo, "smart grid is a concept that will change - in some parts of the world is already changing - the paradigms of the electricity sector, as electricity was to leave the analog and entered the digital age. "

One example is that next week, the Eletrobrás held a seminar to promote the process of automating the measurement of consumption of its distributors. The next step of this transformation is already being discussed by Aneel: charging with progressive discounts according to the time of use of electricity.

Source: DCI