Network Architecture and Solution Design of Prepaid Meter & AMI Charging Management System for Remote Area PV Power Station

1. Executive Summary

This technical solution focuses on the full-chain system design for off-grid and remote-area photovoltaic power supply scenarios, covering smart prepaid meter hardware design, field communication networking, Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system architecture, and cloud-based prepaid charging management platform.

Targeting the characteristics of remote regions including weak public network coverage, scattered end-users, unattended operation, difficult fee collection, and high line loss, the system adopts a low-power wireless networking architecture to realize automatic energy metering, real-time tariff deduction, remote power on/off control, offline autonomous operation, and centralized AMI data management. The solution achieves unmanned, standardized, and intelligent operation for remote PV micro-grid power stations.

2. System Overall Architecture

The entire system is divided into three core layers: End Meter Hardware Layer, Field AMI Communication & Acquisition Layer, and Cloud Prepaid Metering & Charging Management Platform Layer.

2.1. End Meter Hardware Layer

Includes single-phase/three-phase prepaid smart meters, built-in relay control unit, LoRa communication module, metering chip, power failure memory module, and anti-tampering detection circuit. It completes on-site independent metering, local tariff deduction, load control, and offline data storage.

2.2. Field AMI Communication & Convergence Layer

Consists of LoRa gateway, 4G/ satellite dual-mode transmission unit, local data cache unit, and micro-grid data collector. It realizes polling collection of all meter data, protocol conversion, offline data caching, and uplink transmission to the cloud AMI system.

2.3. Cloud AMI & Prepaid Charging Management Layer

Covers Advanced Metering Infrastructure core services, user account management, tariff strategy configuration, prepaid balance management, remote device control, data statistics, fault diagnosis, and recharge management functions.

3. Smart Prepaid Meter Hardware Design

3.1 Core Hardware Configuration

• High-precision energy metering chip, supporting active/reactive energy, voltage, current, power factor, and load rate measurement

• Embedded high-stability relay for automatic power cutoff and restoration

• Independent local CPU system, supporting offline standalone billing and metering

• LoRa wireless communication module with long-distance penetration and ultra-low power consumption

• Large-capacity local Flash memory, supporting more than 365 days of offline data storage

• Anti-electricity tampering detection, reverse connection protection, over-current and over-voltage protection

• Power-down data retention function, ensuring no data loss after sudden power failure

3.2 Hardware Core Functions

3.2.1. Offline Autonomous Prepaid Operation

The meter independently completes real-time energy calculation, balance deduction, residual energy judgment, and automatic power disconnection when the balance is exhausted. No real-time cloud network is required for basic metering and control logic.

3.2.2. High-precision Multi-dimensional Metering

Supports total energy, daily energy, monthly energy, real-time electrical parameter sampling, and line loss statistical data output, meeting AMI system refined management requirements.

3.2.3. Local Fault Self-diagnosis

Automatically identifies abnormal load, short circuit, over-current, meter tampering, and abnormal power consumption, and records fault codes locally for subsequent cloud analysis.

3.2.4. Low-power Wireless Communication

Adopts industrial LoRa spread spectrum communication, suitable for mountainous areas, pastoral areas, and scattered remote user scenarios with long transmission distance and strong obstacle penetration capability.

4. On-site AMI Metering Communication Network Design

4.1 Networking Mode

The system adopts LoRa star self-organizing network for local area meter data collection. All prepaid meters work as terminal nodes, and the LoRa gateway works as the central convergence node. The gateway periodically polls meter data, synchronizes status, and issues control commands.

4.2 Communication Features for Remote PV Scenarios

• Communication distance: 3–5 km in open areas, 1–2 km in mountain and woodland environments

• Ultra-low power consumption dormancy mechanism, suitable for long-term unattended field operation

• Strong anti-interference ability, adapting complex electromagnetic environment of PV micro-grid

• Self-networking and self-repairing, single terminal failure will not cause network paralysis

4.3 Uplink Transmission Design

• 4G full-network communication as the main uplink channel for real-time data uploading and command delivery

• Satellite communication module as backup channel for zero-public-network remote areas

• Local gateway offline cache mechanism: all metering data and event logs are stored locally and automatically supplemented to cloud after network recovery

5. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) System Design

5.1 AMI System Core Composition

The AMI system is the core data service platform for remote PV metering scenarios, including meter data acquisition service, device management service, data verification service, line loss analysis service, and equipment online monitoring service.

5.2 Core AMI System Functions

5.2.1. Unified Meter Data Acquisition

Real-time and scheduled collection of energy data, electrical parameters, device status, and event records of all prepaid meters in the PV station coverage area. Standardizes data protocol and unifies data caliber.

5.2.2. Remote Meter Management & Parameter Configuration

Supports remote modification of meter address, tariff parameters, system time, threshold parameters, and remote meter reset to realize centralized batch management of massive terminal meters.

5.2.3. Line Loss & Energy Balance Analysis

Matches PV station generation data, energy storage output data, and user-side consumption data to automatically calculate station-level line loss, identify abnormal loss points, and support refined micro-grid energy management.

5.2.4. Device Online Monitoring & Fault Early Warning

Real-time monitoring of meter offline status, communication failure, metering abnormality, and equipment fault. The system automatically generates alarm logs and realizes hierarchical early warning.

6. Cloud Prepaid Charge Management System Design

6.1 User Account Management Module

Realizes user file creation, user classification, household correspondence management, user information modification, and account status management. Each user independently owns a prepaid account and independent energy consumption data ledger.

6.2 Prepaid Billing & Tariff Management Module

• Supports fixed electricity price, time-of-use price, and tiered price configuration

• Real-time automatic deduction according to user real-time power consumption

• Automatic early warning when account balance is lower than the preset threshold

• Support holiday preferential strategies and special user tariff policies

6.3 Recharge Management Module

Supports online mobile recharge, backend manual recharge, recharge record query, recharge bill generation, and abnormal recharge data reconciliation. All recharge records are permanently stored in the cloud database.

6.4 Remote Power Control Module

• Automatic power cut when user balance is insufficient

• Automatic power restoration immediately after successful recharge

• Support manual remote power on/off by administrator for maintenance and inspection scenarios

• Operation log recording for all remote control behaviors

6.5 Data Statistics and Report Module

Automatically generates daily, monthly, and annual power consumption reports, revenue reports, line loss reports, and equipment operation reports. Supports data export, data tracing, and operational analysis of remote PV stations.

7. System Offline Fault Tolerance Mechanism

7.1. Meter Local Autonomous Operation

When the cloud network is completely disconnected, the prepaid meter continues independent metering, deduction, and power-off control without affecting user power consumption management.

7.2. Gateway Local Data Cache

The field gateway caches all metering data and alarm events locally for up to 365 days, ensuring zero data loss during network interruption.

7.3. Automatic Data Supplement Transmission

After network recovery, the system automatically compares local cached data and cloud data, completes batch supplementary transmission, and synchronizes account balance and meter status.

8. Solution Advantages for Remote PV Scenarios

• Fully adapted to no-network, weak-signal, scattered-user remote PV micro-grid scenarios

• Complete offline autonomous prepaid capability, realizing true unattended operation

• Low-power wireless networking without on-site wiring, reducing construction cost

• Integrated hardware-AMI-charging full closed-loop management

• High data security, stable metering, and strong system scalability

• Effectively solve electricity theft, arrears, high line loss, and difficult charge collection problems in remote areas

9. Application Scope

• Off-grid village-level PV micro power stations

• Pastoral and mountain scattered user PV power supply systems

• Island independent photovoltaic power generation and power supply projects

• Remote border area unattended photovoltaic energy storage power stations

• Rural independent micro-grid prepaid metering and charging renovation projects