Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to smart meter networks, and more particularly to a power adapter used in an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) network.
In an electric utility industry, electric meters are commonly employed to measure electric power consumption at a residential or commercial establishment. The electric meters may be plug-in meters, wherein a socket is mounted on a wall of the residence or building and contains terminals which are connected to electric line and electric load conductors.
Utilities companies that have an AMI set up when necessary use the line side of an AMI power meter to provide power for the AMI infrastructure. Moreover, the AMI meters may provide additional utility as part of the AMI network with respect to conventional power meters. The AMI meters may have inbuilt networking devices for communicating data to a utility company over a network. Optionally, the networking devices may be independent of the AMI power meters. These networking devices may perform data collection and network management within the AMI.
One of the areas where contemporary AMI infrastructure lags is in powering a networking device within the AMI. The networking devices may require additional operational power, independent of the operational power needed for power meters. Traditionally, the operational power for the AMI network devices is drawn from the existing utility distribution system.
Hence there exists a need for a power adapter to provide the operational power to the networking device when a traditional utility distribution source is not available. Additionally, a need exists to provide the operational power to the networking device from a line side, instead of a load side of a power meter.