Kalkitech Source Code Library and Chip Vendor Sample Stacks

A few Metering Chip Vendor's are providing object code's along with their Metering Chip's for free to meter manufacturer's to Implement DLMS COSEM. It would be good to look at the key differences between the chip vendor library and Kalkitech DLMS COSEM Library, and what would be the long term and short term impact on the support, cost and flexibility to meter manufacturers.

Description	Kalkitech	Chip Vendor Stacks
Server Source Code Availability	YES	NO
Client Source Code Availability	YES	NO
Multiple Platform & CHIP Support	YES	NO / Only CHIP Vendor
DLMS Server Object Code Availability on all CHIP Platforms	YES	NO / Only Own CHIP
DLMS Client Object Code Availability for Handheld, Configuration Tools, Client Softwares	YES	NO / Only Own CHIP
Stack Size Optimization Services based on application requirements on all Manufacturer Chips	YES	NO / Only Own CHIP / Non Dedicated
Support & Maintenance Services through the life cycle, including stack modification	YES	Non Dedicated
Customization / Implementation Services	YES	YES / Own Chip / Non Dedicated
Support for different market / country Companion Standards	YES	NO
Certification Support for meter	YES	NO / Non Dedicated
PLC LLC Support for Multiple PLC Chip Vendors	YES	NO
Submetering & DCU Integration from the stack	YES	NO
Flexible licensing options across chip platforms	YES	NO
DLMS COSEM Training	YES	NO
Expertise on DLMS COSEM Protocol	YES	NO
Participation in DLMS COSEM and Companion Standard Activities	YES	NO
Committment to DLMS COSEM	YES	NO / Non Core Activity
Total Cost of Ownership	Similar	Similar
Entry Cost	LOW	NIL
Run-Time Cost	.$$	NIL
Life Cycle Cost, Including no vendor lock-in	$$$	$$$$
Shortest Time to Certification	07 Days	Not Known

Even though the Metering CHIP Vendor stacks are free, when one considers the total cost of ownership, flexibility, vendor lock in, internal expertise and knowledge required to certify a meter, life cycle support and maintenance as well as migrating to a smart grid, a vendor tie with object or source code from CHIP vendor's will highly limit the options for the meter manufacturer, and in the long run act as a hindrance to their market growth.

Also, Kalkitech Stack is guaranteed for quality, compliance, performance, upgrades if standard changes and is provided with an assurance from the global market leader in this space; while CHIP Vendor stacks are given as is with limited liability and support, without a life-time guarantee on support and maintenance being available.

Also, Kalkitech support all CHIP Vendor's including TI, MicroCHIP, Maxim, FreeSCALE, Analog Devices among others, and have Object Code and Source Code Options available for all the chips available in the market.

For more info on Kalkitech DLMS COSEM Stacks, please visit - KALKITECH.COM/DLMS

Indian Companion Specification

The Indian companion specification for DLMS COSEM is almost ready. The adoption of DLMS/COSEM and the drafting of the companion specification is a great step forward for India, in its standardization efforts. The fact that all stakeholders finally understood, appreciated and in the end supported and participated in driving the India specific standard is one of the firsts in India.

This augur's well not only for the the R APDRP programme that the government of India is implementing, but also paves the way for future technology adoption and implementation in the Indian AMR/AMI and Smart Grid space, for the mechanism that was adopted and the maturing and professionalism of the various participants makes it possible for the BIS ET 13 to move aggressively forward in more standardization in the metering and Smartgrid space.

This mode may also be adopted by the LITD 10 of BIS, for a number of standards within the Smartgrid framework needs indegenization and active debate and discussion before it can actually become an Indian standard.

IEC 62056 / DLMS COSEM Indian Companion Standard

BIS ET13 Protocol Panel is working on a new companion standard for IEC 62056 / DLMS COSEM for India. This companion standard will define country specific (INDIA Specific) requirements that the IEC 62056 protocol implementations in India will need to comply with. The companion standard will ideally define the sub-set of requirements mandatory for any IEC 62056 implementation in India, as well as country specific profiles and event code for events and tamper data.

The companion standard also will define the ABT profiles as well as parameterization as defined the CEA/CPRI/IEEMA protocol panel for the different types of meter's in India. Since these companion standards are specific to India, an India specific certification of the companion standard by CPRI might be adopted, rather than the DLMS UA certification for the implementation.

DLMS COSEM Workshop and AMI Conference in New Delhi

The DLMS COSEM Workshop and the AMI Conference concluded on 19th February 2009 at New Delhi. The Workshop introduced the DLMS COSEM / IEC 62056 protocol to the Indian audience of utilities, regulators and the meter manufacturers. The workshop by DLMS UA President and IEC TC 13 secretary Gyozo Kmethy was well received. Also the presence of Thomas Schwab from L&G and management committee member of DLMS UA added to the depth of IEC 62056 expertise, and the impact of an Indian adoption of the standard. Vinoo S Warrier of Kalkitech, member of the BIS LITD 13 Protocol Panel and the DLMS UA Technical Committee presented an overview of the draft in the works of the Indian Companion Standard for DLMS COSEM for adoption as the National Standard. This was followed by the CTT test tool and the certification laboratory capabilities of http://www.cpri.in CPRI, the largest 3rd Party DLMS Lab in the world.

The conference also saw numerous papers on DLMS COSEM, AMI, Smart Grid, Smart Metering, Security and Meter Data Management presented. Central Electricity Authority presented a presentation on the Importance of the protocol issue and the reasons why government of India is very keen for it's 12 Billion Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Program II to be successful to improve the power distribution system in India and how open protocols play an important role.

CBIP DLMS COSEM Workshop and AMI Conference

CBIP is organizing Workshop on ‘Metering Data Exchange–International Standards & Protocols’ [IEC 62056 (DLMS/COSEM)] and Conference on ‘Advanced Metering Infrastructure’-17-19 February 2009 in Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi. Gyozo Kmethy, President of DLMS UA is taking the workshop on IEc 62056. Kalkitech is sponsoring this event. More details are available here.

Workshop on Metering Data Exchange (DLMS/COSEM) and Conference on Advanced Metering Infrastructure

CBIP (Central Board of Irrigation and Power) is organizing a workshop on metering data exchange (DLMS/COSEM) and Conference on advanced metering infrastructure on February 17-19th 2009 at Le Meridian New Delhi. More details are available from the conference brochure.

DLMS COSEM to be the Indian National Standard

Time is a great leveler and determination, consistency and patience always pays off in the long run. These could be the best describers of what happened over the last 6-7 years in India, and which culminated in the month of November 2008, where there were hectic parleys which resulted in an expert committee formed by the Ministry of Power In India, formally deciding to recommend to adopt the IEC 62056 / DLMS COSEM Series as India's national metering protocol standard, with India specific companion standard to cater to country specific requirements.

It would not have been too far from truth, if one were to worry even 6 months ago, whether India will ever have a meter communication protocol standard. The metering lobby has been all along pushing for an API based proprietary metering mechanism, with data export to a standard XML format as their version of a communication standard. The fact that this was not a metering communication protocol standard in the first place, and was inflexible to build good AMR and AMI architectures and had limited profile support all were in the end it's biggest short-comings. Even after proposing this standard called MIOS 3-4 years back, the detailed specification of the same, in a standard format and completeness to the same, took a long time to be formulated by meter manufacturers, considering the complexity of the register based naming and lack of homogenity. The fact that this standard itself was becoming a problem for meter manufacturer's to maintain, upgrade and implement might be the hidden truth.

DLMS/COSEM has always been seen suspiciously by the major meter manufacturer's in India, even though all had DLMS/COSEM compliant meters for International market was something many experts in this field cannot digest. It has to be believed that the CPRI DLMS/COSEM conformance testing center, together with Kalkitech's DLMS/COSEM Server and Client Source Code Library, gave a lot of confidence in the community that, if one were to implement the same, they still could do it in a short time, and once they all started implementing, their own confidence in the protocol all would have played a major role in taking the entire community to gravitate and finally accept a DLMS/COSEM Metering standard for India.

It would be right to state that the intervening 5-7 years, were really accrimonious times for the remote metering space in India, and the major problem that used to get thrown out at people supporting DLMS/COSEM was the Indian requirement of supporting vast amount of tamper conditions, and the seemingly general statement that Indian conditions cannot be captured fully under DLMS COSEM. This has been one of the major planks that we have been trying to expose, and with kalkitech's report on a companion specification under DLMS COSEM to handle India specific tampers, and the new event object's that were introduced by DLMS UA, went a long way to reduce the opposition to DLMS and help enable capture country specific conditions and incorporate in a generic fashion within DLMS/COSEM.

Finally in November 2008, Indian Power Ministry decided, India will have a standard set of communication protocols for metering, AMR and AMI and will also have it's own set of companion standard that captures India specific conditions. This decision historic in many senses, also requires us to appreciate and understand that metering protocols are not a closed chapter, but an always evolving area and India will need to consistently spend time and effort in actively participating in making it work for the Indian conditions, as well as for AMR and AMI applications that get's conceived in the future.