Net Meter Technical Specification Report | Palestinian Energy Project (PEP)

The report presents the findings from meetings with stakeholders in the Palestinian territories and recommends net meter features for Palestine. The field visits and discussions with DISCOs revealed that all electricity distribution companies in the Palestinian territories are implementing smart multi-function meters for all customers with or without solar systems to satisfy the current Palestinian net metering policies. The DISCOs use digital energy revenue meters, such as the Holley DTSD545 meter for three-phase customers and the Holley DDS28 for single-phase customers, which are designed to measure bi-directional active and reactive four quadrants energy, voltage, current, power factor, and frequency. The implemented net metering policies in the Palestinian territories limit solar system size to a certain percentage of a customer's load to prevent intentional oversizing. Residential customers are limited to 5kW, and the revenue meter can be connected directly to the circuit. However, for large commercial or industrial customers, current transformers (CTs) are used to connect the meter to the circuit. Electricity distribution companies like JDECO bill their customers based on time of use (TOU) rates, where the customer pays different rates depending on the time of day. The revenue meter has to support TOU billing structure to track electricity usage during specific periods of time. Some DISCOs require customers to install a separate meter after the invertors to monitor solar generation for statistics and planning studies, while others require customers to install two meters at the connection point with the grid, a digital bi-directional meter, and an electromechanical meter. To standardize the key features of the revenue meters required for net metering, PEP recommends the following meter functions and specifications to be adopted by DISCOs. The revenue meter should support bi-directional active and reactive four quadrants energy measurement, time of use (TOU), real-time clock (RTC), maximum demand indication (MDI), billing date, load profile, operation status indication, diagnose and event record, LCD display, and communication ports. The meter should meet the following key technical parameters: applicable standards IEC 62053-21, IEC 62053-23, and IEC62056-21; accuracy class active Class 0.2 or 1, reactive Class 2; reference voltage 230/400V 3-phase or 230V single phase; frequency 50Hz; current measuring direct for (20-100)A and CTs for >100A; impulse voltage protection 6kV or higher. The recommended meters or equivalent are Landis+Gyr E350, Landis+Gyr E570, Landis+Gyr S650, Itron ACE6000, SATEC EM720 eXpertmeter, and Holley DTSD545 series. The recommended suppliers are Landis+Gyr, Itron, SATEC, and Holley. All Palestinian DISCOs are either implementing or in the process of implementing automatic revenue meter reading systems. The system should be able to collect real-time parameters, including voltage, current of each phase, power factor, total active energy, reactive energy, and apparent power of each phase, frequency, and internal temperature. The meter should also support the use of "Over the Air" upgrades, which allows additional features to be sent to the meter without the need to visit the consumer premises.