While EPB is desiring to go "High Tech" and enable things like time of use tiered billing and automatic remote disconnects, they are are doing it in a clunky way. They intend to "sweep" read approximately 150k meters at 15 minute intervals, which is communications intensive, and required a lot of data center computing power to interpolate and store the data properly. True smart meters such as Echelon (http://www.echelon.com) units calculate and store tiered information in the meter, providing pre-processed pre-calculated raw data to the utilities systems with exact timestamped readings as well as many other features such as integrated disconnects (not add-on collars).
Regionally, Tantalus (a Canadian company) has been having large scale equipment failures and has been replacing thousands of units at several utilities.
The good news is EPB has proven to be flexible and this learning experiment will teach them a lot. As true smart metering/smart home technologies mature, so will their understanding and implementation of them.
Mike, from Utiliflex.com a local Chattanooga smart metering software/systems development company.
Chattanooga: EPB eyes contract for meters
While EPB is desiring to go "High Tech" and enable things like time of use tiered billing and automatic remote disconnects, they are are doing it in a clunky way. They intend to "sweep" read approximately 150k meters at 15 minute intervals, which is communications intensive, and required a lot of data center computing power to interpolate and store the data properly. True smart meters such as Echelon (http://www.echelon.com) units calculate and store tiered information in the meter, providing pre-processed pre-calculated raw data to the utilities systems with exact timestamped readings as well as many other features such as integrated disconnects (not add-on collars).
Regionally, Tantalus (a Canadian company) has been having large scale equipment failures and has been replacing thousands of units at several utilities.
The good news is EPB has proven to be flexible and this learning experiment will teach them a lot. As true smart metering/smart home technologies mature, so will their understanding and implementation of them.
Mike, from Utiliflex.com a local Chattanooga smart metering software/systems development company.