An Alternative Method for Accelerated Reliability Testing of Energy Meter in PLN Indonesia

Abstract

An energy meter should continuously provide a good-accuracy as any deviation contributes to the company (or customer) loss. One approach to estimate the reliability of the meter is through the accelerated reliability testing. During the test, samples are tested inside a climatic-chamber with humidity and temperature above the operating conditions. The known testing procedures based on the IEC 62059-31-1:2008, however, is time-consuming. Some reasons are due to the daily-interval checking for all samples and the combination number of over-stresses in the test. For these reasons, the PLN proposed an alternative method by which it employs only the maximum temperature and humidity overstresses with a Weibull fitting-distribution. The method simplifies the former IEC method. It also gives benefit by allowing a modification on the duration and the number of samples based on the reliability target and the confidence level. With this approach, the length of the test reduces to about 20% in comparison to a full test recommended by the IEC.