# The Role of Smart Meters in Enabling Real-Time Energy Services for Households: The Italian Case
## 1 Introduction  
Smart metering plays a crucial role in the electricity value chain. Availability of metering data is a prerequisite for the management of the energy flows exchanged between the private low voltage (LV) consumers/prosumers and the utilities. The \"smartness\" of the metering infrastructure basically refers to the possibility of a Distribution System Operator (DSO) reading the metering data remotely, hence avoiding the need to send technical personnel on site and reducing or eliminating the need for customer estimations of consumption. In all the EU Member States, a separation is required between the DSO and the retail supplier, which has commercial contracts with final customers and prosumers. In this paper, we assume that the metering system is owned and operated by a DSO, while the billing is managed by the retailers for the whole price (including the network tariff). This is the most frequent situation among the EU Member States. The Smart Meter (SM) is placed at one end of the chain, the other end being the Head-End System (HES) of the DSO. The SM samples the energy flows withdrawn from or injected into the electric network. These measurements are transmitted to the HES through an Automated Meter Reading (AMR) infrastructure. Thanks to frequent and accurate digital measurements, SMs make it possible for retailers to activate special contracts differentiating energyprices throughout the day. This also waives the necessity of consumption estimations and self-reading, enabling a Time-of-Use (ToU) or even Real-Time-Pricing (RTP) regime [1; 2; 3; 4]. By contributing to the final goal of keeping demand and offer curves as close as possible during the day, ToU and RTP are known to have a positive effect for both DSOs and final customers [5; 6; 7]. In addition, SMs can enable newer services such as Automated Demand Response or prepaid contracts. An additional advantage of SMs is feedback to customers about energy flows at their connection points, which allows them to have a better awareness of their consumption behaviors. The more information is available, the higher the customer flexibility and their capability to control their own consumption. There are several use cases requiring that metering data reach the customer as quickly as possible in order to let them react close to the time of utilization. DSOs and retailers cannot provide such data with a low latency, because the data-collection process is engineered to maximize the availability and correctness of the collected data, thus implementing time-consuming data retransmission and validation processes. The only feasible solution is to enable direct transmission of raw data from the SM to devices located near the customer's premises [8]. In-Home Devices (IHDs) such as simple displays, smartphones, or web-based portals fed by SM raw metering data, can increase energy savings. They can even combine electric measurements with other data (e.g., tariffs, saved CO2, neighbors' consumption, etc.) with the goal of supplying more valuable and enriched information for energy savings [9; 10]. Some studies [11; 12] show that real-time feedback can be interesting to the final customers if:  
* It is displayable on different devices (smartphones, tablets, dedicated devices, etc.) * It is clear and intuitive (through smart charts and aggregated results)
* IHDs have a good design and are cheap and easy to install [13]. A lack of the mentioned features can lead customers to lose interest after some months [11]. With a more complex infrastructure, IHDs fed by SM measurements and other entities can automatically control a set of deferrable appliances, thereby reducing the usage of energy during peak hours with no direct customer intervention. IHDs are also a viable alternative for providing frequent data to users without incurring the legal and technical difficulties of involving third-party service providers [14; 15]. This paper has the following goals:  
1.