Benefits of Electricity Digital Panel Meter

Electricity Digital Panel Meter or for short Digital Meter has been available in the market by different vendors. The question arises for Electricity or other utility companies in general if they need to invest in digital meters.

Digital meters are NOT all Automatic Meter Reading (AMR). Digital meter is just like analog meters but displaying measures in digital, while AMR is sending the meter reading data to reading center periodically using communication technology like internet, network LAN, GPRS, etc.

In this article, we will discuss only Digital Meters. If digital meters are just like analog meter, so what the benefits to migrate to digital meters? Below are some benefits that electricity companies can have by using digital meters:

# Digital Meter can measure electricity consumption more accurately and reliably. With the digital technology, the problem of meter brakes that could happen in meter analog will not going to be encountered. This way, electricity company will charge the bill to customer more fair. The company can even decides to be as accurate as decimal points in term of electricity consumption.
# Related to previous point, since the mechanical parts are less, the maintenance period becomes less as well. The age of digital meter can be longer than ordinary mechanical/analog meters.
# Most digital meters are designed to be AMR ready. Electricity company has option to read this meter using conventional meter readers or through AMR (network LAN, etc).
# Most digital meters are equipped with probe or scanning device. This is used to transfer reading in semi automatic way. Why semi automatic? because reader should go to the meter with Hand Held Unit / Pocket PC and connect to pocket PC probe to digital meter probe. The digital meter will then transfer all the reading information to Pocket PC. This will be a good way to ensure that the readers are visiting the property instead of doing cheating by inputting reading in "coffee shop".
# Reduce cases of meter tampering. Digital meter is more difficult to tamper, if bypass meter is done, the short circuit can send signal to meter that possible tampering is done.

Before deciding if it is necessary to migrate to digital meters, a feasibility study needs to be done. Simple survey to ask within the company department should be carry out:
1. Does currently the company and client concern about more accurate reading? If the tariff price is high, this could be an issue. If the tariff is very small, it will not make a big difference by having 1-2 kW consumption.
2. Does currently the company spend big budget to maintain mechanical meters?
3. Does currently the company experience a lot of meter tampering cases?
4. Etc.

The feasibility study will decide whether the investment will give more benefits in term of tangible and intangible for future.

Currently, several companies that are producing digital meters are: Centron, GE, GANZ, IKRA, EMH, etc.

Does your meter readers know meter model and brand?

Recently, I was sending the meter readers to the field to obtain some of the meter brands and model in customers' properties. To my surprise, they returned with different lists on the same area. Even though meter readers always going to the field to read meters, it is NOT necessarily mean that they know the meter brand and models. Why?

1. When they read the meters, they only read the meter number and meter reading. They never care about the brand and models. Only the technicians observe meter brand and model because the need to make a field report after installing or exchanging meters.

2. Even if they see something in meters, they do not know whether it is brand, model, country of manufactures. Especially when your readers do not speak English. It will be difficult when they see S.P.A. Is it a brand or a model? When they see EGYPT, is it a brand, model, or country of manufactures? Some meter brands uses country as the brand. To make the situation worst, some meter manufactures do not put the brand in the meter. They only put type. One example is SUNER meter brand. They only put TPD2 in the meter, which is the type of meter, NOT the brand.

Thus, if you plan to gather information about meter brand and model in some area, try to send your technicians. If you need to deploy your readers because they know the area better, spend few days to train them about the available meter brand and models in your company.

Below are some meter brands that are commonly used in electric company:
AEG
AMAM
AUTOMETER
CHAMBERLAIN
DZG
FERRANTI
GANZ
GEC
IME
ISKRA
LANDIS & GYR
ME BWANDLERZAHLER
PAFAL
S.P.A.
SCHLUMBERGER
SIAME
SIEMENS
SUNER
TEMPX
TRIVICTOR

Upgrade into Automatic Meter Reading (AMR)

Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) is becoming a trend in utility company. Various vendors are offering nice features of AMR. However utility company should consider again if they need or if they are ready to implement this automatic meter reading. I have seen 2 out of 5 utility companies that I visited are implementing AMR but they are not benefiting much of the functionalities.

AMR has a functionality that transmits the meter reading automatically to billing system using ways of communications technologies. Either using a simple phone line, or using other telecommunication technologies like LAN, GPS, wireless, satellites, etc. From the 1 of the companies that I mentioned are not fully utilized the AMR because they just do not have reliable telecommunication technologies. In the end, they need to send readers to read the meter manually. The other 1 is not able to make an interface between AMR to the billing system. Thus, what the use of having AMR then?

Utility company should evaluate their conditions before spending money to upgrade meters to automatic meter reading. At least, here are the points that should be focussed on:

1. Within the budget? Conduct Cost and Benefit Analysis. We know that AMR can bring a lot of benefits like on time reading, early detections of irregular consumptions, better monitoring off peak and peak consumptions, better monitoring for complex tariff computation, etc. But make sure the company can utilize all of them.
2. Have strong communication network.
3. Will be able to integrate to other systems (billing system, scada, meter fraud)
4. Human Resources are prepared with the technology. Only users that understand the system can benefit from AMR.