Testing Energy Meter

compliance for Protocol &

Performance as per standards
Pradish. M, Engineering Officer Part 1 of 2
V. Arunachalam, Joint Director
V. Shivakumar, Engineering Officer
Mridula Jain, Engineering Officer

CENTRAL POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE

BANGALORE

C P R I
 Need for Open Protocol in Energy Metering

IT in the form of, Intelligent Meters (IM), has
already pervaded the Indian power sector.

These meters provide information needed for
billing, accounting, load survey, demand
monitoring, power quality etc.

These meters are being read automatically or
remotely by various techniques.

These meters have become a part
of SCADA systems which are put
together by the manufacturers and
system integrators in some utilities.
 Need for Open Protocol in Energy Metering

The choice of communication medium is

equally important as it along with protocol
which assures seamless connectivity in the
chosen distribution network and ensure
successful implementation of the application.

The application software at either end

aided by a common open protocol can
exchange required information as and
when needed.
 Need for Open Protocol in Energy Metering

The goal of IT empowerment in distribution
would require Interoperability, Data collection
and Data Management.

Interoperability could be defined as “The ability

of a system or a product to work with other
systems or products without special effort on
the part of the customer”
– Any system can read any meter
– No special involvement of vendors
 METERING SUBSYSTEMS

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HOST LT

CONNECTIVITY
PROTOCOL Mn

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 Need for Open Protocol in Energy Metering

IEC 62056 is already being adopted by many

countries and is now finding place in many
tenders floated by utilities in India as well.

IEC 62056 is the only open standard which

can be tested using a Conformance Test Tool
(CTT) maintained by DLMS UA.
 Present situation in India

Indian metering industry is a heterogeneous
one with multiple communication protocols.

Even optical ports are not uniform complying
to any standards.

Another issue is the difficulties in integration
of different make of meters at the field level.

Difficulties in implementation of AMR
(Automatic Meter Reading) in India.
 IEC 62056 (dlms) FEATURES
OBJECT MODELLING - Companion Specification for Energy
Metering [COSEM]
DATA IDENTIFICATION – Object Identification System [OBIS]
MESSAGING
TRANSPORT

MEASUREMENT COMPUTATION COMMUNICATION

METER
INSTANTANEOUS VALUES
PROFILES
MANDATORY OBJECTS TARIFF READINGS
ADDITIONAL OBJECTS POWER QUALITY PARAMETERS
AND OTHERS
 IEC Part Number Title
IEC 62056-21-2002 Electricity Metering – Data Exchange for
meter reading, tariff and load control: Direct
local data exchange.
IEC 62056-42-2002 Electricity Metering – Data Exchange for
meter reading, tariff and load control:
Physical layer services and procedures for
connection oriented asynchronous data
exchange
IEC 62056-46-2002 Electricity Metering – Data Exchange for
meter reading, tariff and load control: Data
link layer using HDLC protocol
IEC 62056-53-2002 Electricity Metering – Data Exchange for
meter reading, tariff and load control:
COSEM Application Layer
 IEC Part Number Title
IEC 62056-61-2002 Electricity Metering – Data Exchange for meter
reading, tariff and load control: OBIS Object
identification system
IEC 62056-62-2002 Electricity Metering – Data Exchange for meter
reading, tariff and load control: Interface
Classes
IEC 62056-47-2006 Electricity Metering – Data Exchange for meter
reading, tariff and load control: COSEM
transport layers for IPv4 networks
 DLMS Certification…
DLMS UA provides a conformance testing
process.

The main elements of the process are:

Conformance test tool;
DLMS Certification;
Listing of compliant equipment;
Conformance test maintenance process.

The process is based on self-testing, using

the Conformance Test Tool.
 Testing for protocol compliance

Test Setup

Line Traffic
xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Request
Response

Conformance Test Tool Device under Test

 DLMS Testing…

CTT is an application that automatically
performs predefined test cases on devices
implementing the COSEM object model and
the DLMS/COSEM 3-layer, connection-
oriented, HDLC based communication
profile or the TCP-UDP/IP based
communication profile.

The purpose of the CTT is to verify that the

device implementation conforms to the
standard, and, if not, to show which parts of
the standard are not correctly implemented.
 DLMS Testing…

CTT takes as input a text file called the
Conformance Test Information file (CTI file)
that describes the relevant device
parameters used during the test. The CTI is
provided by the manufacturer in the
prescribed format.

At the end of a test run, the CTT generates

a test report showing which test cases
passed and which failed. The test report is a
digitally signed text file.
 A CTI file may/must contain the Mandatory/Optional elements.
The following are Mandatory Elements
Manufacturer
HDLCProfile
Name
PhysicalLayer
ThreeLettersId
EchoingPort
PhysicalDevice
OpeningMode
Ident
DataLinkLayer
SerialNr
InactivityTimeout
CommunicationProfilesSupported
InterFrameTimeout
ApplicationContextsSupported
ResponseTimeout
SecurityLevelsSupported
DISCToNDMTimeout
LogicalDevice [ ]
AddressingSchemes
ServerSAP
TCPProfile
Association [ ]
ServerTCPPort
ClientSAP
ConnectTimeout
ContextName
ResponseTimeout
MechanismName ClassExtraInfo
Conformance Version
DlmsVersionNumber AttributeId
ServerMaxReceivePduSize AttributeExtraInfo
 DLMS Certification…

As a Third Party Testing Laboratory, we

test the device using CTT and the reports
are forwarded to DLMS UA for verification
& publishing the certificates.

Conformance test reports are filed by the

DLMS UA, but they are not published.
Copies should be available from the
vendor.
 DLMS Certification…

Is the conformance test be enhanced

continuously?

The DLMS UA regularly maintains the

conformance test specifications and the
conformance test tool to allow testing new
features and to increase the depth of
testing. The process is described on the
DLMS UA conformance testing web-site.
 DLMS Certification…

How should products be labeled after

passing the conformance test?

Upon acceptance of the test report, the

DLMS UA recommends that the
manufacturer displays the “DLMS/COSEM
compliant” mark on its product and product
literature.
The “DLMS/COSEM compliant mark can be
found on the DLMS UA conformance
testing web-site.
 DLMS Certification…

Enhancements to the product after it has

passed conformance test, is it needed to
re-test the product for conformance?
The DLMS/COSEM test certificate is valid
for the product identified in the test
certificate. The features of the product
having passed the test are listed in the PICS
and PIXIT / CTI files, which are part of the
test report. The list of objects can be
identified by browsing through the COSEM
object list test part of the test report.
 DLMS Certification…

If during a product enhancement new

features are added which were not
tested earlier, the product must be
re-tested so that compliance can be
claimed.
 DLMS Certification…

Product configurations, do they need to be
re-tested?
It is recommended that conformance testing
is made on a few different configurations,
characteristic for the implementation.

It is recommended that the DUT is

configured for the tests in such a way, that
all features implemented and available in
any valid configuration are tested.
 Testing for protocol compliance

CPRI has the Conformance Test Tool to test
meters with DLMS compliance, and has
successfully tested:
- 12 devices from 3 Indian manufacturers
- 18 devices from 4 overseas manufacturers
- Server stack for an Indian Company.

CPRI is the only laboratory to test highest
number of devices for DLMS compliance in the
world (www.dlms.com)

Many quires are being received for testing
devices for DLMS compliance.
 Pradish. M
[email protected]