Village Metering · three primary phases · working draft · not a standards schedule
ISV Tech Comm sequences Village Metering work so we do not mash prepaid field reality, sovereign mini-grid software, and utility grid programs into one pile. Ask of every feature: which phase? If the answer is “all three,” cut scope.
Phase 1 keeps operators billing on gear that already exists. Phase 2 builds the open mini-grid core (Street-EMS / OpenAMI). Phase 3 adds grid-arrival and aggregator paths (2030.5, OpenADR, 1547). PAC workshops ≈ Phase 1 + a thin Phase 2 slice. Maps: TC2.0 review · TC2.0 + cloud · stack filter SteamaCo · SparkMeter · EnAccess · OpenAMI (also on Overview).
Talk to meters, gateways, and backends villages already run — without rewriting billing for every OEM.
Islanded or weak-grid village OS: multi-tenant pole, actionable telemetry, local assemble & repair.
When the main grid or a DER aggregator arrives — utility-facing programs, not year-one prepaid.
Six outcome clusters village operators care about, mapped to who addresses them (documented vs could). Empty = not documented this pass. Full diagram: Solutions map.
| Outcome theme | Main problems | SteamaCo | SparkMeter | EnAccess | OpenAMI (could) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue collection | Per-home kWh, collect-before-use, deliver credit, show balance, token audit, O&M revenue | Savi STS + Nimbus vending / mobile money | GroundBolt wallet + CIU (not STS / OpenPAYGO); ThunderCloud billing | MPM prepaid; OpenPAYGO tokens (SHS-class); OpenSmartMeter GSM | Compose MPM / OpenPAYGO on VMRS + MQTT — not a new token scheme |
| Control | Disconnect, reconnect, multi-home pole | STS cutoffs at Savi. Multi-home pole not documented this pass | GroundBolt Enable/Disable. Multi-home pole not in TC2.0 scope | MPM commands (Steama plugin); OpenPAYGO enable/disable. No pole-tenant EMS | Tenant cutoffs at Street EMS / MeshEMS pole |
| Loss & theft visibility | Illegal taps, unmetered load, leakage, neutral imbalance, meters disagree, spot theft | No public feeder-AMI / ΔP leakage docs this pass | Meter tamper flags only — not feeder AMI | Billing + meter tools, not feeder AMI | Leakage at feeder / branch / customer via geo model + MeshEMS |
| Operational visibility | Voltage, instant power, serial & clock | Nimbus is AMI-class; no public meter ICD this pass | GroundBolt live kWh, power, voltage, state | MPM reporting; OpenSmartMeter API | VMRS registers + MQTT northbound |
| Cost & independence | Meter capex, MDMS cost, mixed protocols, vendor exit, inverter vs billing | DLMS-interop HES claim; partner stack does not solve vendor-exit | TC2.0 opens HES (partial); meters stay SparkNet | MPM as open backend; OpenSmartMeter; OpenPAYGO avoids STS license | OEM-agnostic gateway + open northbound; MPM as backend option |
| Comms resilience | Cloud unreachable, prepaid offline, vending down | Savi GPRS/PLC/RF; STS credit at meter without cloud | CIU if WAN down; GroundBolt keeps local prepaid + control | OpenPAYGO without continuous cloud; Cicada-FW; OpenSmartMeter GSM | MeshEMS NAN when cloud down + compose OpenPAYGO/STS for local credit |
Goal: operators keep collecting revenue and controlling disconnects while open stacks learn to speak the same southbound dialects. “Legacy” here means installed base — STS and DLMS are not obsolete; they are the field.
| Track | What “done enough” looks like |
|---|---|
| Prepaid / tokens | STS or OpenPAYGO vending path documented per site; token path stays separate from scheduled meter reads. |
| Meter readout | Gateway (or HES) can read VMRS-tier registers from at least one DLMS and one Modbus/ATM90 path; ICD gaps listed honestly. |
| Operator backend | At least one open HES/MPM-class system runnable without proprietary cloud lock — see ThunderCloud update below. |
| Hardware kits | COTS or open PCBs (MeshEMS, CircuitSetup, DitroniX, DIN Modbus) assembleable in-country; license/credit clear before fab advice. |
EarthSpark published ThunderCloud 2.0 under Apache-2.0 as a pre-production foundation, not a drop-in for live basestations. Field fleets still run TC1.x managed SaaS — open-sourcing does not interrupt them. Hub: sparkmeter.io/open-source · news: sparkmeter.io/news · code: github.com/EarthSpark/thundercloud.
Why it matters for Phase 1: Sep 2025 EarthSpark took over SparkMeter EM ops (~1M people on the meters). Jul 2026 open stack removes single-vendor soft-lock for operators who can self-host later, while managed path stays for everyone else. Full write-up + diagrams: TC2.0 comprehensive review.
For operators who want meter crypto outside EarthSpark hosting: (1) leave keys with EarthSpark, (2) escrow copy at A2EI (Access to Energy gGmbH), or (3) take keys directly. Mis-handling keys can brick meters — treat as ops risk, not a checkbox.
main (Ansible from-scratch converge; SymmetricDS container CI) before decade of deferred product features.ISV maps TC2.0 under Phase 1 — open operator software for the installed SparkMeter base — complementary to MPM and to Phase 2 Street-EMS / OpenAMI MQTT (not a substitute for those).
thundercloud — operator web app (ThunderCloud / GroundBolt)ansible — basestation / deploy convergesymmetricds — sync containersparknet-http — meter/gateway HTTP pathmeter-driver-spec — driver interfacegroundbolt-dev — local metarepo / clone manifestStreet-EMS / MeshEMS, OpenAMI MQTT + VMRS-shaped payloads, feeder/branch/customer loss visibility, in-country kit assembly. Detail lives on OpenAMI and MeshEMS.
Utility and aggregator programs after “grid arrival”: IEEE 1547, IEEE 2030.5, OpenADR, SunSpec DER northbound. Optional IETF SIP (RFC 3261) control-plane dialogs (admit / authorize / correlate via sipCallId in northbound MQTT) only after Phase 1–2 backends and telemetry are real — not a substitute for STS or DLMS, and not year-one prepaid. These are deferred, not dismissed — see Standards. Village prepaid priority stays Phase 1–2 until a site has a real VTN/aggregator counterpart.