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Smart Meters and Smart Grid Solutions
Elster is partnering with Hometown Connections to offer smart meters and smart grid solutions with favorable commercial terms to APPA members. The centerpiece of the program is Elster’s EnergyAxis® System. It enables public power utilities to offer business and residential customers more accurate meter reading services, improved outage management and reliability, and demand side energy management savings.
Two-Way Communications with Electric, Gas, and Water Meters
EnergyAxis is an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) system that provides utilities with the tools and information needed to improve business operations and customer service, lower operating costs, and increase revenue. EnergyAxis isn’t just a good idea, it’s a good investment.
Its sophisticated communication network is an intelligent, self-registering, self-healing, two-way radio frequency network technology for electricity metering that also supports gas and water metering applications. Coupled with Elster’s electronic residential REX® meter, EnergyAxis enables utilities to read remotely water, gas and electric meters, monitor for outage conditions, capture local voltage conditions, and initiate service connect and disconnect operations. These features reduce costly site visits and eliminate the need for other costly sensing and monitoring equipment on a utility distribution system. Utilities can also take advantage of EnergyAxis’s demand response capabilities by providing consumers with real time usage information, allowing consumers and utilities to proactively manage consumption during peak energy demand periods.
Scalable for Utilities of All Sizes
The EnergyAxis System uses an unlicensed 900 MHz network technology which allows utilities to start small and expand the system on their own schedule. This scalable smart metering solution represents the right choice for utilities serving as few as 1,000 meters as well as utilities serving 1,000,000 meters or more.
Meter Readings When and Where You Need Them
Customer turnover, locked gates, unleashed pets, or indoor meters reduce operational efficiencies and drive up metering costs. With the EnergyAxis System, these barriers, as well as associated problems of estimated bills or rescheduled meter reads, are eliminated. High turnover areas, like apartment complexes, universities, and military housing, represent costly service areas, requiring repeated trips to obtain move-in and move-out meter reads or to provide disconnect and reconnect services. The on-request reading function and the remote operation of Elster’s optional disconnect switch improves the utility’s ability to manage customer turnover while reducing operational costs and improving customer service.
How the EnergyAxis System Works
EnergyAxis System’s advanced architecture uses a network gatekeeper for local data collection from the meter network. Gatekeepers are equipped with both Wide Area Network (WAN) and Local Area Network (LAN) communications capability and manage local area networks of up to 2,048 meters. The EA_Gatekeeper may be packaged in an Elster A3 ALPHA meter or in an enclosure for alternate mounting locations. The EA_Gatekeepers store the data from LAN-equipped meters and send it periodically to Elster’s
EnergyAxis Management System (EA_MS) via a public network WAN. Because meter-form EA_Gatekeepers can also function as normal revenue meters, capital expenses, installation, and maintenance costs are reduced.
EnergyAxis® System Advantages
--Cost-effective automated meter reading
--On-request and scheduled meter reads
--Billing data directly from the meter
--Metering functionality changeable on command
--Typically less than four years payback based on hard operating cost savings
--Smart meter activity consumes only a small fraction of network capacity leaving ample room for Smart Grid applications
--Smallest hardware footprint and lowest system energy burden available. This means low installation and operating costs.
--Provides new customer service options like fast on-demand reads, detailed energy data, and widespread monitoring with event alerts to allow utility to respond faster to power or water grid events.
APPA Members on EnergyAxis
“Elster’s EnergyAxis System will provide the City of Ocala with better communications to every electric and water meter on the City's distribution system. It is a unique opportunity for our customers to be a part of a larger solution for energy conservation initiatives.”
--Joe Noel, Supervisor of Resource Management, City of Ocala Utility Services, FL
"After extensive research and analysis, we decided that Elster's EnergyAxis System provided the best overall solution to meet our metering needs. We are preparing for the next phase of outage management and upgrades. The system is scalable, and we are very pleased with the smart meters and Elster's continual technical support and expertise."
--Greg Wilsbach, Superintendent of Electric Utility Department,
Borough of Middletown, PA
Contact Us
For more information on Elster’s revolutionary metering solutions, contact your Hometown Connections representative.
See the Elster web site for more information.
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