A Container-Driven Service Architecture to Minimize the Upgrading Requirements of User-Side Smart Meters in Distribution Grids

Advances in information and communication technologies have significantly influenced the operation of low-voltage distribution grids. As essential elements of distribution grids, user-side smart meters find many smart grid applications, for example to measure electrical energy use and facilitate communications. However, the service models of distribution grids remain under development in association with upgrading of user-side smart meters. These meters are resource constrained, and challenging to upgrade on a large scale. To address this issue, this article describes a container-driven service architecture, in which containers are used to create a virtual dedicated agent (digital twin) for each user-side smart meter. The agent can be deployed either in the cloud or on an edge system, and can be upgraded to support emerging smart grid applications, thus minimizing the future upgrading requirements of user-side smart meters. We built experimental test beds to verify the proposed architecture and evaluated its performance in real-world experiments.