Smart Meters: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Electricity - Smart Grid (R) Evolution: Electric Power Struggles - page 102

to the utility. While smart meters are the tangible hardware that consumers see, they also
rely on rapidly evolving software to enable the bidirectional communication.
In industry parlance, smart meters and their associated sensors and links to the
distribution network are called “Advanced Metering Infrastructure” (AMI). Rather than
using the term “smart meter,” many policy and technical documents refer to AMI
technology that bidirectionally transmits and receives information on energy use. AMI is
different than one-way Automatic Meter Reading (AMR), which refers to technological
advancements that enable automatic meter reading and reduce the need for meter readers to
visit individual consumers each month. AMR includes both wired and wireless technology,
withdifferentlevels ofautomation limiting theneedtomanually recordthemeter,although
some AMR still requires periodic meter-reading visits. For example, with AMR, meter
readers only have to drive by a house and the meter will be read remotely.
Meters are the most visible part of the grid system. As we explained in Chapter 3 , smart
grid includes multiple technologies with many different combinations and configurations.
Some smart grid technologies are “grid-facing” and behind-the-scenes, not visible to the
general public, but smart meters are the public face of the smart grid. For example, only
grid operators interact with the synchrophasor technologies for monitoring the phase angle
on high-voltage transmission lines with potential to improve system reliability. But other
smart grid technologies, such as solar PV and smart meters, are more visible to electricity
consumers. Smart meters have become the most publicly prominent type of smart grid
technology, and they have taken on a symbolic role, in a sense representing the broader
challenges and larger opportunities associated with smart grid development. Electricity
meters are where the electricity system interfaces with the customer, and they are the part
of smart grid that has potential to directly influence individuals' patterns and expectations
of electricity use. The meter is a portal, where households and individuals interface with
the rest of the grid, so the smart meter is a critical focal point. When our research team
analyzed media reporting on smart grid coverage in national-level newspapers we found
that smart meters were the technology mentioned in over half (58 percent) of news articles
about smart grid (Langheim 2013 ) .
This chapter tells several stories related to smart meter deployment; these stories
highlight the controversies, tensions, and social complexities of sociotechnical change.
Most often, smart meter deployment in the United States has been initiated and
implemented by electric utilities as they attempt to integrate new monitoring and
management strategies in response to different pressures, such as increasing system
reliability and efficiency or allowing more distributed renewable energy resources onto the
system. While utilities have successfully installed smart meters in millions of households
and communities throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and other parts of the