With energy demand rising, there is a high possibility of supply instability.
Metering solutions needed to improve product energy efficiency
Analog World Supplying Easy-to-Use ADI Solutions


According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global energy demand in 2021 is projected to increase by 4.6% compared to 2020. This represents a 0.5% increase from 2019, indicating that energy demand is returning to pre-COVID-19 levels.

However, as of May, the global COVID-19 vaccination rate remains below 6%, and with the spread of virus variants in countries like Vietnam, it appears difficult to achieve a complete end to the pandemic within this year. Since the energy industry involves many face-to-face tasks that cannot be replaced by remote work, a smooth energy supply is also expected to be difficult if current workforce management challenges persist.

With increasingly frequent extreme weather events, concerns about the environment are growing. The energy industry is grappling with alternatives to thermal power generation, while the automotive industry is accelerating the transition from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles. The problem is that most eco-friendly power generation methods fail to surpass the efficiency of thermal power, and the driving range of electric vehicles is too short relative to the energy consumed.

With the potential for energy supply instability and increasing demand persisting, energy efficiency is becoming a value of paramount importance. To increase energy efficiency, technology is needed to accurately determine how much energy is being used.

We asked Lee Seung-kyu, a manager at Analog World, about the energy metering solutions needed to improve energy efficiency, the difficulties engineers face when applying them to actual applications, and ways to resolve those challenges.



Q. What is the reason for the recent increase in demand for energy metering solutions?

A. With the spread of non-face-to-face trends during the pandemic and the rise of remote work and education, the volume of data that data centers must process has increased explosively. Furthermore, charging demand is rising due to the active adoption of electric vehicles, while energy consumption is increasing driven by the popularization of smart homes and the growth of smart buildings and smart factories.

As electricity usage must be constantly monitored to maintain smooth energy supply and demand, the demand for energy metering solutions is increasing, and the range of applications is also on the rise.



Q. What are some applications where energy metering is utilized?

A. These include slow electric vehicle chargers, electricity meters, power meters, data center power monitoring systems, street light controllers, security light controllers, smart plugs, etc.



Q. What is the biggest challenge for developers when implementing energy metering functionality?

A. Includes the design of voltage and current sensors, calculation of accumulated power, harmonic analysis, implementation of THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) functions, and calibration.



Q. What is the family of energy metering solutions offered by Analog Devices (ADI)?

A. Currently, ADI supplies the 'ADE7953' single-phase energy metering solution, the 'ADE9000, ADE7878A' three-phase energy metering solution, the 'ADE7880' three-phase harmonic monitoring solution, as well as products including isolators and one-chip solutions.



Q. Please introduce the ADI Energy Metering Solution Evaluation Board.

A. ADI and Analog World supply evaluation boards in which two chips are integrated onto a single board to verify the performance of ADI energy metering IC products, specifically single-phase (ADE7953) and three-phase (ADE9000). Intuitive control is possible as the development environment is Windows GUI-based. In addition, both companies provide circuit diagrams for the evaluation boards and offer design consultation and software support.



Q. What features does the evaluation board support, and which features would you like to emphasize?

A. The ADI energy metering IC evaluation board provides instantaneous values such as voltage, current, power factor, active/reactive power, and apparent power by default. It also provides power quality-related detection functions including THD, zero-crossing, line frequency, dip, swell, and phase angle, as well as cumulative active power.

In particular, the ADE9000 3-phase energy metering solution supports a Waveform Buffer function. This feature allows the MCU to acquire the original power signal and perform functions such as FFT to extract only signals of a desired order from the harmonic components, thereby enabling the analysis of power quality. This data can also be transmitted to a server to plot graphs.



Q. What are ADI and Analog World's goals in the energy metering solutions market?

A. Analog World contributes to the stabilization of the domestic power market by supplying ADI's various energy metering solutions. Moving forward, both companies plan to jointly carry out various projects to design and supply even more stable energy metering solutions.