This report describes the results of field monitoring of the communication performance between second-generation energy meters and user devices (chain 2) in the case of communication using C-band power line technology. The monitoring, conducted over about a year, involved around one hundred end users of the electricity supply service equipped with second-generation meters. The monitoring activities were promoted by the Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and Environment (ARERA) to provide certainty to potential developers of services for end users regarding the actual performance achievable with this communication technology for direct access to meter data via chain 2. The average daily success rates of chain 2 communication, observed under real operating conditions for three different types of messages, were 99.43%, 98.32%, and 98.64%, which are well above the value expected by market operators, declared at 90%.

Chapter 2 of the document describes the organization of monitoring activities, the definition of performance indicators, the information collected to characterize the installation of energy meters and user devices, and the setup of data collection platforms. Chapter 3 provides a statistical characterization of the monitored physical links through which chain 2 communication occurs with power line technology. Chapter 4 reports the validation procedures for the collected performance measurements and a statistical description of the sample measurement data. Finally, Chapter 5 presents the statistical analysis of the communication performance measurements, providing the overall success rate in data transmission and some detailed statistics related to specific characteristics of the installations considered.