Metering.com - 2008

Smart metering and demand response pilot starts in Washington DC

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:26:38 +0200

:NODATE:[img:logo-pepco.thumbnail_0.gif| ]Washington, DC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- July 25, 2008 - The PowerCentsDC(TM) residential smart meter and smart pricing pilot, where 1,200 customers will use a combination of technology and innovative rate structures to reduce electricity usage, has been launched in Washington, DC.

The pilot is sponsored by the Smart Meter Pilot Program, Inc., a non-profit corporation consisting of the District of Columbia Public Service Commission, Office of People's Counsel, Consumers Utility Board, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and Pepco Holdings, Inc. It is being managed by eMeter and UtiliPoint International, Inc., which has managed the systems integration and testing in collaboration with Pepco, the local distribution utility.

U.K. government to consider widespread water metering

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:22:25 +0200

:NODATE:[img:hilarybenn2.thumbnail.jpg|Hilary Benn,
U.K. Secretary of
State for
Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs]London, U.K. --- (METERING.COM) --- July 25, 2008 - The U.K. government has announced that it is currently commissioning an independent review to provide advice on widespread water metering and charging, with a particular focus on the social, economic and environmental concerns.

New meters for New South Wales water resources

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:06:21 +0200

:NODATE:[img:Nathan.thumbnail.jpg|Nathan Rees,
Water Minister,
NSW]Sydney, Australia --- (METERING.COM) --- July 25, 2008 - The New South Wales government is to spend $131 million (US$125 million) installing and replacing 9,500 water meters for groundwater sources, unregulated rivers and streams in the Murray-Darling Basin.

According to state water minister Nathan Rees the government will pay to replace 6,000 meters on regulated rivers, but there is some discussions around contributions towards the others by those who extract groundwater.

New vice president appointments at Sensus

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:25:36 +0200

:NODATE:[img:Logo_Sensus.thumbnail.jpg| ]William T. Yeates has joined Sensus Metering Systems as Vice President of its Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Electric business unit and George Uram has been appointed Vice President, Industry and Regulatory Affairs.

Yeates has twenty-four years of global engineering, sales and operations experience. He was previously with Power-One, Inc., a power conversion and power management products company, where he was chief executive officer. His experience also includes more than fifteen years with AT&T/Lucent Technologies in various engineering and sales leadership roles throughout the U.S. and Asia. Yeates holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from Louisiana Technical University.

Iberdrola completes definition of open telecommunication architecture for AMI and smart grid

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:31:01 +0200

:NODATE:[img:iberdrola_logo_0.gif| ]Madrid, Spain --- (METERING.COM) --- July 24, 2008 - Spanish utility group Iberdrola has completed the definition of its public, open and non-proprietary power line communication (PLC) telecommunications architecture to support smart metering and smart grid evolution.

The first milestone was the definition and testing of the basic Physical (PHY) layer earlier in the year, which is based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and offers up to 130 kbps in the CENELEC-A band as well as further advantages such as increased robustness, longer distance reach and low cost.

New York City to install water AMI

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:18:50 +0200

:NODATE:[img:emily_lloyd_0.jpg|Emily Lloyd,
Commissioner,
New York City DEP]New York, NY, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- July 24, 2008 - New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has selected the Aclara STAR® Network system, one of the Aclara-brand technologies of ESCO Technologies Inc., as its advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) technology.

Colorado Water District begins MOSAIC AMR deployment

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:13:50 +0200

:NODATE:[img:PAWSA_0.jpg| ]Pagosa Springs, CO, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- July 24, 2008 - Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) in Pagosa Springs, CO, has commenced its project to install Datamatic’s advanced MOSAIC automated meter reading system throughout its service territory.

Set high in the San Juan Mountains, 480 km southwest of Denver, PAWSD’s service territory encompasses over 200 km2 and receives more than 2.5 m of snow each year. This makes accessing the water meter nearly impossible and has made it necessary for PAWSD to estimate bills for its 4,800 residential water customers nearly half the year.

Advanced Metering Requirements Drive Higher Levels of IC Integration

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:54:19 +0200

:NODATE:Our parents’ electricity meter provided kWh readings, could only be read with human eyes, and required a machine shop to build. Today’s energy meters provide a laundry list of measurements, can be read from the comfort of your office chair, and require a wave soldering machine to manufacture. The increased complexity in delivering a meter with all of these advanced functions at a lower cost has driven semiconductor companies to pack more features into one integrated circuit device.

Metering on increase in municipal buildings in Europe

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:35:06 +0200

:NODATE:[img:logo_6.jpg| ]Lisbon, Portugal --- (METERING.COM) --- July 23, 2008 - Many European local authorities are collecting data on building water, electricity and gas consumption and most is collected by conventional manual data collection systems – paper bills and manual meter readings – with only a few so far collecting data automatically through electronic bills and even less with automatic metering systems.

Baltimore Gas and Electric launches smart meter pilot

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:29:17 +0200

:NODATE:[img:BGE.thumbnail.jpg| ]Baltimore, MD --- (METERING.COM) --- July 23, 2008 - Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE) has launched a four-month smart meter pilot program involving more than 3,000 gas and electric customers in Baltimore and Westminster aimed at helping them better manage their energy usage.

The pilot runs from July to November 2008 and will test two-way communication via secure radio frequency between the customer's meter and BGE’s new meter data management system.

Second meter source for OpenWay® announced by Itron and Elster

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:10:50 +0200

:NODATE:[img:Open_0.jpg| ]Raleigh, NC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- July 23, 2008 - A memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been executed to integrate Itron’s OpenWay advanced communications platform with Elster’s REX2™ and A3 ALPHA® meters.

Under the terms of the MOU, Itron will develop an OpenWay communications board to be integrated with Elster’s smart meters at the Elster manufacturing facility in Raleigh, North Carolina.

RFP for water meters - Mexico; Closing date July 25, 2008

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:24:50 +0200

:NODATE:

Company:Board of Water Supply and Sewerage Systems of the State of YUCATN
Country: Mexico
Product/Service: Request for proposals for water meters
Type: RFP
Closing Date: July 25, 2008
Reference: TRAD 1752

CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS

‘Smart Grid 101’ – 2-day Seminar on developing a road map for African utilities

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:24:31 +0200

:NODATE:
Conference: Smart Grids Africa
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Presenter: Douglas Houseman
Abstract: Presented by Douglas Houseman at Smart Grids Africa

Demand response, smart metering and other strategies to address the South African Energy Crisis and help implement a smart grid

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:21:42 +0200

:NODATE:
Conference: Smart Grids Africa
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Presenter: Graeme Mellis
Abstract: Presented by Graeme Mellis at Smart Grids Africa

South Africa is certainly not the first country to experience an energy crisis. We need look no further for historical examples than the famous California electricity crisis of 2000 and 2001. While the causes of this crises were quite different to those of the current South African one, the results were similar, the crises led to a shortage in energy and therefore, blackouts. Rolling blackouts began in June 2000 and recurred several times in the following 12 months.

In 2001 drought created an energy crisis in Brazil, which is strongly dependent on hydroelectric power and also the third-largest consumer of electricity in the Western Hemisphere. As of 2002 the country's per capital energy consumption was equal to that of all other South and Central American countries combined. From June 2001 through March 2002, power was rationed allowing the country to avoid rolling blackouts.

Europe, although not currently experiencing an energy crises, is also actively exploring methods to increase energy efficiency in compliance with their Kyoto obligation on CO2 emissions and to improve security of their electricity supply.

This article explores some of the lessons learned from these and other countries and in particular how Smart Metering technology has been implemented as a tool to effectively manage the electricity supply industries in these areas.

A Smart Plan for Electric Utilities facing new challenges

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:18:15 +0200

:NODATE:
Conference: Smart Grids Africa
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Presenter: David Healey
Abstract: Presented by David Healey at Smart Grids Africa

Utilities in Africa are facing an unprecedented demand for change. In order to meet growing demand economically and environmental imperatives efficiently, the design and operation of the power delivery value chain will need to become capable of real time interaction with the marketplace. Of course these dramatic changes must be absorbed whilst always ensuring that electricity is affordable and continually improving in terms of reliability. Utilities today have very little visibility as to what is happening on the electrical distribution network and are therefore frequently in reactive mode. In most cases, there is little if any visibility into the real-time picture of system conditions.

The challenge is how to overcome this reality?

The electricity sector in Africa faces the same challenges in this regard as those of every other continent. The relative scale of the available socio economic benefits that can be realised from addressing these challenges however, is unique to Africa. Today’s technological advances in the field of power delivery operation provide unique opportunities in Africa, to deliver maximisation of present asset utilisation, reductions in asset operation and improvements in the quality of power service delivery.

In order to realise these mission critical benefits, utilities in Africa must be able to monitor their energy delivery infrastructure and manage the resulting information effectively in order to have meaningful control of the power delivery process. This smart monitoring is the difference between a century-old way of delivering power and tomorrow’s efficient and reliable Smart Grids.

Improving energy efficiency requires the grid to minimize energy delivery losses and perform in a proactive manner in order to optimally balance supply with demand. Accomplishing this task requires a form of intelligence on the distribution grid that to date has not been available. Smart Grids will change that.

Smart Grids will use revolutionary new technologies, products and services to create a strongly user-centric approach for all customers and to respond to environmental, social and regulatory demands placed on energy supply. Networks are evolving: Smart Grids incorporate the latest technologies to ensure that they will be flexible, accessible, reliable and economical.

The Smart Plan solution to improve energy and operational efficiency depends upon building new types and levels of functionality into the power system, with Smart Grid innovations such as: