METERINGChina2011 Conference & Exhibition, the 5th ANNUAL international metering event, organized by GSL Consulting Ltd. China, successfully ended on April 21, 2011 in Guangzhou, China. The 3-day event, started from April 19, was specially designed to focus on the latest development of global Smart Metering, Billing, AMR/AMI, Data Management & CRM industry. It’s our great pleasure to gather total 34 top officers, experts / managers from both China and international metering-related industries to share their knowledge and opinions with conference delegates by presenting different topics. More than a thousand professionals from governments / organizations / companies attended the event and applausive comments / feedbacks were received from most of the participants.

Since the past four years, this event has been commonly recognized as a metering point in the domestic and international industry. In 2011, the event not only retained the traditional key sessions which included pre-conference workshop, opening ceremony & keynote session ( plenary session), three day conference sessions , professional exhibition and field visit, but also designed two new programs which were Chinese Meter Manufacture CEO Dialogue and Global Buyer Congress to enhance the unique value-added service for conference delegates.

The event was successful thanks to the support from South China Power Grid, State Power Grid, South Electricity Regulatory Commission, more than provincial/city-level power distribution companies, as well as North China EPRI, Chongqing EPRI. Meanwhile, special thanks were given to CLP Power Hong Kong for supporting the organizer in organizing the Chinese Utility Leader’s Visit and to Guangzhou Power Company for them to arrange the Field Visit for conference delegates. We were also delighted to have domestic / international speakers and participants to share their advanced technologies and field experience together.

The conference program brought fresh information that shaping Chinese metering industry today and tomorrow to conference delegates. According to a speech, the Chinese government has declared plans to continue a large-scale meter deployment through 2020. In summary, there are great national strategic development planning and market environment for smart metering industry.

The conference commenced with the topic of “what shall we do in the 12th five year plan” which was addressed by Mr. Zhang Chunhui – a meter expert from Shandong Power Utility. This topic forecasted and analyzed the needs of Chinese metering industry from technology points of view in the coming five years, and the products and solutions to be developed, as well as the market development direction. Following the pre-conference session, opening keynote speeches were addressed by 2 VIP speakers including: South China Power Grid Corp. (Mr. Shi Shaoqing) and State Power Grid Corp of China (Mr. Yao Jianguo). These keynotes were presented the current status about the 20+ smart grids pilot projects in the State Power Grid and case summary after one year and half development as well as next step plans. It was also covered the smart metering development status today and tomorrow in South China territory.

In the following sessions, there were 29 experts and utility leaders to present and share their knowledge in the area of smart meter standardization and testing, smart meter design and innovation, utility procurement strategies & management, communication interoperability in AMI, communication technology, smart metering pilot project and next generation focus of smart utilities. From their speeches, participants not only obtained the profound knowledge related to technologies, but also enhanced their understanding of current market environment, including opportunities and challenges. For example, IBM discussed the smart metering roll-out(r/o) challenges; and Jilin Power suggested establishing the open standards for healthy competition; and Beijing Power Company introduced the application status of micro-power wireless communication technology; and ZigBee Alliance addressed how aspects of smart grid are coming together from a consumer perspective.

Recalling the three days conference, a brief summary showed that new technologies have been emerged from the initiatives of smart metering and smart grids deployment in these two years. Both utility companies and vendors have made a lot of research and development in this area. However, there are still many issues which should be improved and strengthened. In any case, it is noteworthy that the smart metering pilot projects in different countries/district have different focus, different deployment speed and different scale, but the objective of doing all these is the same (Green Grid, Energy Saving, Low-carbon Economy and Environmental Protection).

The CEO Dialogue was the specially designed for China metering industry/companies to share their thought, and show the activeness and responsibility of Chinese metering companies to the word. The dialogue was addressed by 5 CEO including: Holley Metering, Shenzhen HND, Shenzhen TRJ, Jiangsu Linyang and Shenzhen CLOU. They shared their experience, management wisdom, success stories, future prospects and other related individuals view with conference delegates.

In addition, a panel discussion among the five CEOs was arranged by Q & A and it was very interactive with the audience. The opinions and comments delivered in the dialog were not only vital to understand China’s macro metering market environment, but also showed how these leading companies to face the opportunities and challenges.

In the exhibition hall, leading exhibitors showcased their latest products, systems and technologies. The displayed products ranged from smart meter, power information acquisition system, various meter components (such as battery, PLC modules, GSM/GPRS modules, GPS modules, wireless modules, relay/shunt/current transformer and so on), power management and distribution automation terminals, AMR/AMI solutions, CIS/CRM systems.

Especially, power information acquisition system of Holley and residential integrated metering system of KGE attracted more attentions. In addition, three testing and certification bodies from North America and the Netherlands (NMi, MET, and KEMA) were also given a major highlight. The test equipment vendors, such as Zhuhai Tespro, Guangzhou GENY, Shenzhen XL and the communication module suppliers such as Leaguer (Shenzhen) MicroElectronics, u-blox, SIMCom, Shenzhen G&T, Shenzhen Appcon, Quectel Wireless did a very good show with their characteristics in their respective fields. All participants believed that the exhibition was a valuable opportunity for them to share variety of perspectives and insights on different products and technologies.

In order to offer the global buyers an opportunity to gain basic knowledge about the culture understanding and commercial aspects, and share views, opinions on how to buy from Chinese metering market with experts from the industry, the organizer designed the new program of Global Buyer Congress.

The congress was addressed by Dr. Eugene Chang, Mr. David A. Dayton (the owner and manager of SRI), Mr. Jim Reed (expert from MET), Mr. Steven Zheng (Vice president of Holley Metering), and Mr. Chen Wei (GM International Trade Department of Zhejiang Chint). As a global platform for buyers and sellers, the congress program covered a full range of trade topic from cultural difference understanding, finding suppliers to planning logistics to avoid risk and quality check as well as quality control.

Through the congress, many global buyers expressed that the program let they arm themselves with important sourcing information and sourcing basics which was crucial to survive in today’s uncertain markets. Meanwhile, they express strong interest to attend future similar activities again.

Remote Meter Reading System Project Site at Guangzhou City Power Company
The low-voltage Remote Meter Reading System in Guangzhou was established in 2009, which is a subsystem of metering automation system. Currently the total number of concentrators installed is 4507, the collectors: 36697, covering 614.482 thousand of households.

In April 21 afternoon, with the strong support of Guangzhou City Power Company, 30 domestic and abroad delegates visited the customer service center of Guangzhou City Power Company and Liede community which adopted the low-voltage Remote Meter Reading System.

CLP Power Hong Kong Limited Meter Testing Centre-Smart Meter Testing
CLP Power Hong Kong Limited (hereinafter referred to CLP) has about 2.3 million electricity customers. With the advent of newer measurement technology and the popularity of smart meters, CLP has upgraded 2 units of 3 phase meter testing bench in 2010. Apart from basic meter testing functionalities, the new meter testing bench can test complex features of the smart meter such as TOU, on/off switch and interfacing with communication port.

On April 21, 2011, a delegation from Chinese mainland power companies (Beijing, Shanghai, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Guizhou, Guangdong, Yunnan etc) was organized to visit CLP Power. As a long-term support utility of GSL Events, specialists from CLP meters Dept. warmly welcome the delegates with detailed technical explanation, and demonstration onsite.

On April 18, 2011, just one day before METERINGChina 2011 Opening ceremony, with the assistance of GSL Events and organized by NMi & VSL, NMi Seminar was successfully held. The Seminar covered two points: one is the presentation watthour meters MID, WELMEC, EU and IEC while the other is Presentation VSL “Metering and measurement challenges of the Smart Grids”. The speakers analyzed problems such as electric meters testing, certification standard and advance technology as well as the measure and metering difficulties that may be met in the smart grids development in China. Nearly 50 participants from Chinese utilities and enterprises took part in this one day Seminar by learning cutting-edge concept based on their own experience and networking with each other to contribute to industry development.