VR Engineering mastering smart grid and IoT integration in electrical control systems

VR Engineering and Consultancy Services (VRECS) is the frontrunner in supporting grid stability.

- Amit Varshney Director- VR Engineering & RM Controls President-Atlanture Transformers & Switchgear (P) Ltd

Amit Varshney discusses more with EPR.

How is VRECS integrating interoperable control panels and smart metering for efficient grid operations?

At VRECS, we recognise that the future of distribution lies in seamless interoperability between control infrastructure and smart metering systems. Over two decades of experience have taught us that passive panel design is obsolete; modern substations must actively participate in the grid’s intelligence layer.

Our current generation of control panels incorporates native support for DLMS/COSEM protocols, which have emerged as the global standard for AMI communication. We have architected our RTUs and gateway modules to support multiple protocol stacks simultaneously—Modbus TCP/RTU, IEC 61850, DNP3, and MQTT that ensure backward compatibility with legacy SCADA systems while enabling modern IoT cloud connectivity. The panels feature a dual-Ethernet architecture with protocol translation engines that can ingest high-frequency meter data (15-minute to real-time) and convert it into actionable substation-level insights.

We are particularly focused on edge intelligence. Rather than merely forwarding raw meter data, our panels preprocess AMI streams to detect load imbalances, power-quality disturbances, and consumption anomalies at the feeder level before transmitting summarised telemetry upstream. This approach dramatically reduces bandwidth requirements while enabling utilities to respond to local faults faster. For solar rooftop and EV charging deployments, we have implemented bidirectional energy accounting that reconciles generation, consumption, and grid export data across multiple meter endpoints in real time.