Energy metering chipset

27 April 2011 Power Electronics / Power Management

As installations of smart meters in homes and businesses accelerate globally, STMicroelectronics has unveiled a new set of energy metering chips for next-generation smart meters.

Unlike traditional induction Watt-hour meters, which are vulnerable to wear and fraud and provide only limited features, smart meters, or electronic meters, are intelligent devices that have no moving parts and can support sophisticated tamper detection and two-way communication for improved grid management and billing. More specifically, smart meters allow automatic remote meter readings by power utility companies and make energy consumption transparent and directly manageable for consumers.

Together, ST’s new STPMC1 and STPMS1/S2 create a cost-effective chipset for modular smart meters, supporting 50–60 Hz IEC and ANSI standards for up to 0.2-class AC Watt meters. The STMPC1 metrology IC, which has five input channels, accepts measurements from three phases with the option of using the fourth channel for tamper detection or temperature sensing, and the fifth channel to accept magnetic field information from a Hall sensor. The device can be configured and calibrated for any international distribution standard.

The STPMS1 and STPMS2 are dual-channel delta-sigma modulators that convert analog current and voltage values from each phase and transmit digital data to the STPMC1. They can be placed very close to the current sensor to avoid long analog tracks and high-noise capture. In addition, the reduced number of connections and the discrete implementation leads to the potential use of three shunt resistors via low-cost isolation on digital data paths, instead of using significantly more expensive isolated sensors. The STPMS1 has a first-order modulator, while the STPMS2 has a second-order modulator delivering enhanced accuracy.

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