1. Why AMR
Which network assets are overloaded or underutilized? What is the correlation between overloading and equipment breakdown?
Which areas have the highest power theft and tampering? Which were my worst performing feeders/distribution transformers last week? Last 24 hours?
Where can I place capacitor banks for reactive energy reduction?
Which DTRs/consumers require extra vigilance on account of high commercial losses?
Which consumers have violated sanctioned demand in the last month?
Which network nodes have reported outage event last week?
How can I accurately reconcile all my bills with actual consumption?
How can I reduce system peak load through feeder reconfiguration?

2. Options for AMR
Hard wired
Radio
Power Line (PLCC)

3. Option 1.
Hard wired: The meters are daisy chained to a data concentrator and the data concentrator further transfers the meter data over the other communication mediums viz
- PSTN
- GSM
- GPRS
- CDMA
- FOP
This option is possible for clustered meters.
RS485 based meters are not readily available.
Risk of Inference/ tamper on communication line.

4. Option 2
Radio modem on meter : (LPR)
Each meter is fitted with a radio transmitting device
The meter reading instrument (MRI) has a Radio receiver
Cost per meter becomes very high
Since meters are enclosed in metal enclosure..external antenna
Is needed.
Can be considered for HT Trivector meter consumers.

5. Option 3
Distribution Line Power communication:
This option requires PLCC interface on the meter
which can be installed
Inside the meter
Out side meter
When mounted inside, Meters requires to be type Tested
For Impulse, HV etc
Meter Read through Pulse output.
Picked from meter card as digital signal.
Meter data transmission option :
Broad cast mode
Polling

6. Implementation: options :
New meters with associated hardware
- Modify existing meters
- turn key solutions
- Commercial pilot to precede full implementation

7. Problems in AMR Implementation
Different variety of meters
Different protocols
Common software is not available
Technologies are yet to be matured