Smart Meter: Toward Client Centric Energy Efficient Smartphone Based Solution Salam Ismail Rasheed Khanji 1 , Asad Masood Khattak 2 , Omar Alfandi 2 1 Dept. of Information Security Engineering Technology, Abu Dhabi Polytechnic University, UAE 2 College of Technological Innovation, Zayed University, 144534, UAE Salam.khanji@adpoly.ac.ae, {Asad.Khattak, Omar.Alfandi}@zu.ac.ae Abstract—Smart city applications are developed to facilitate the urbanization and massive development all over the world. This is achieved with real time responses to challenges faced by different sectors, such as health, transportation, water and energy. Smart meter is one of the smart city applied solutions, which facilitates to overcome the increased demand on electricity. This research examines smart meter in the context of energy sector to exploit its related features in the process of Demand Side Management (DSM) to facilitate energy efficiency. A smartphone application is developed that facilitate integration of client in DSM for energy efficiency. The feasibility of such application is reflected on the smart meter business model adopted in Abu Dhabi. Consequently, fundamentals are established to initiate cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the rolling out of advanced metering infrastructure. Keywords— smart meter; smartphone application; energy efficiency; demand side management; advanced metering infrastructure. I. INTRODUCTION The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is an important partner country and a responsible supplier in the global energy market, as it has the world's sixth largest oil reserves and the fifth largest natural gas reserves [1]. Abu Dhabi (AD) holds dominantly 94 percent of the UAE's oil resources. The economic and population growth have increased a massive demand on electricity within AD. Residential, commercial and institutional sectors are the dominant parties with the highest electrical usage consumption estimated to be 10 times the world's average consumption per unit in 2008 [2]. Smart metering grid is a promising solution which will help AD in achieving its 2030 economic goals by managing domestic demands on energy 1 . The cornerstone of smart grid technology is the smart meter (SM), which offers to communicate information (bi-directional communication) of energy consumption and production between the supplier unit and consumers. It opens the opportunity to involve effectively client roles and to transform them into 1 The Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030. https://www.ecouncil.ae/PublicationsEn/economic-vision-2030-full- versionEn.pdf 'prosumers' where they consume and produce power too. The Consumers change their normal electric usage in response to price changes or to other mean of incentives [3]. Italy, which is one of the leading countries in this area, initiated to implement smart meters in 2008 in order to reduce non-technical losses rather than energy reduction reasons [4]. In Spain, number of smart meters installed at the end of 2013 were estimated to 7,910,569 m, where 75% of them were integrated effectively [5]. On the other hand, Germany's decision to implement the smart meter technology was driven by a cost-benefit analysis which recommended to integrate the smart meter only to new buildings and major consumers and facilities as well [6]. Whereas in UK, the cost-benefit analysis estimated to gain about 10.9 billion pounds by the year 2030 through utilizing smart meter technology [7]. While in France, the plan is to install a total of 35 million meters by the year 2020 [8], with features as in managing the charging of the electrical vehicles, monitoring the status of the low voltage network, and monitoring electrical usage using online web portals. Smart meter technology has smart-coded interfaces known as in-home displays (IHDs) which enable consumers to view and control their electrical consumption. IHDs as in OPOWER, Microsoft Hohm, and Google's now-defunct are all examples of user centric energy management applications. Moreover, through the use of Application Programming Interface (API), custom Smartphone applications can be developed to empower client to control home appliances. AD's climate is very hot and dry, and air conditioning (AC) forms over 60% of total electricity consumed in the residential (domestic) sector [2]. From a consumer standpoint, it is imperative to control AC units in times where his/her house unit is not occupied. The proposed Smartphone applications integrate client to control and reduce energy consumption utilizing various valuable feedback communicated by the smart meter infrastructure. The effectiveness of such applications can be measured by the real-time feedback they support. This research study suggests a comprehensive overview of the current status of smart meter technology in AD, being the first Middle East country