Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) and Related Customer Service Functions

Involving the Customers in Making Decisions about their Use of Energy

Introduction to AMR and Related Customer Service Functions

Figure 1 illustrates the AMR function: with interconnections between Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) systems and customers. In this function, three types of customers are identified:

·        Residential customers

·        Commercial customers

·        Industrial customers

In addition three types of AMR systems are identified and are described in the following sections:

·        Hand-held or drive-by van AMR system

·        One-way fixed network AMR system

·        Two-way fixed network C&I consumer gateway

 

Figure 1: Automatic Meter Reading and Related Customer Services

Business Drivers and Opportunities for AMR and Related Customer Services

Customers have come to expect high levels of service, where the click of a mouse button provides instant response, and companies are (all too) aware of personal interests. Provision of electrical services are no different. Increasingly, different types of customers are expecting different levels of service with commensurate tariff rates, such as:

• Customer control over energy usage with real-time information on their current energy usage, their demand level, and current energy prices, combined with various options for the customers to control their usage, ranging from manual customer actions, to the use of Building Automation Systems (BAS) making pre-authorized energy usage adjustments , to direct load and generation control by remote Energy Services Providers (ESPs).
• Sharing automation costs with customers, where both utilities and customers would benefit from the automation systems. This concept is most likely to be of interest to commercial and industrial customers, but could become of interest to residential customers in specific instances.
• Sharing benefits from market-driven "demand response" activities with customers, for instance, by sharing with customers the sale of energy to external entities, particularly during peak demand times when customers have been asked to reduce their demand.
• Highly reliable energy, with backup sources of power such as from a second feeder from a different substation, or more often, backup generation in the form of a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and a diesel generator unit.
• High power quality, where the frequency and voltage levels are maintained within a specific band, and spikes, harmonics, and other anomalies are minimized.
• Net metering, where the customer can either use energy from the grid or supply energy to the grid through the use of distributed resources.
• Consolidated billing for multiple sites
• Sub-metering of individual apartments, campus buildings, departments, and equipment
• Real-Time access to energy billing information
• Participation in individual or aggregated market opportunities through time-of-use (TOU) or Real-Time Pricing (RTP) schemes.
• Lower "interruptible" tariff rates in return for providing interruptible loads, load management, or managing energy usage as requested by the utility.
• Lowest price with minimal services, but with innovative approaches to help those customers who are least able to pay for their energy.

These services require automation. Much of the automation is in the billing and accounting department; other automation is in the call center to handle trouble reporting and billing questions. Nonetheless, some automation must reach out to the customer sites. The benefit-cost of different schemes is a subject of much discussion, and no single answer is appropriate for all situations. One result is clear, however: establishing an AMR system only for reading meters and for no other function is not cost-effective. Therefore, it is vital to add ("piggy-back") other functions on to the pure AMR in order to make the best use of the automation. As with the entire electric industry, enabling technologies are also changing the benefit-cost environment, sometimes on a monthly basis.

The following discussions address the customer services involving information from customer sites (as opposed to in-house billing and accounting systems).

Possible Customer Services Involving Customer Site Automation

The customer services often involve the use of Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) technologies, although AMR is not required for all functions. In fact, AMR is really a misnomer, since it implies only the reading of meters, while customer automation is far more extensive. However, the term AMR has become almost synonymous with customer automation by most utilities.

Customer services can include:

• Periodic electric meter reading: Periodic meter reading is normally used for traditional billing. It can therefore be regarded as replacement of manual meter reading, and does not provide more information. It can, however, be beneficial for hard to read meters and in neighborhoods where manual reading may be dangerous. Automatic periodic reading can also reduce missed readings and reading errors.  Drive-by AMR is often used for periodic AMR, since the cost of fixed communications is difficult to justify. When fixed communication systems are used, readings can be scheduled, for individual meters or groups of meters, to be taken on specific metering cycles, a feature that may be desired by some large customers.

• Time of Use (TOU) metering:   Separate metering of the energy consumed during periods to which different rates apply (e.g., peak, shoulder, and off peak rates, and possibly also rates for for different day types). TOU bills can be calculated from accurate interval readings or from multi-register meters, in which each register is dedicated  to the accumulation of the energy consumed in one of the time-of-use periods. TOU meters do not necessarily require AMR, and are often read by hand held devices with optical coupling the the meters. The meter reader can also use the hand held device to resynchronize the meters' clocks and to reprogram them for a new rate schedule. TOU meters operating under an AMR system require two-way communications, so that the meter clocks can be remotely synchronized and they can be remotely reprogrammed.

• Interval energy reading: Interval metering is the capability to take readings at given time intervals, such as hourly, or every 15 minutes, or even every minute. Usually interval readings require the use of the more sophisticated digital meters. Interval readings are normally taken and stored automatically by the customer site end equipment (the meter or the meter interface unit of the AMR system), and are later retrieved by the AMR master. This ensures that readings are not lost due to temporary communications problems or when the AMR master is not available for a while. Local reading of the meters also permits all the meters or large groups of meters to be read simultaneously at precise points in time. Readings taken exactly on schedule can be employed for all kinds of billing, including periodic (usually monthly) billing, time-of-use billing, and to determine demand charges. If  Real Time Pricing (RTP) is instituted in the future, interval metering can be used to determine the customer's power consumption for each price period. Accurate time keeping by the end equipment is however required for interval readings to be used for time dependent billing, and this implies a capability to remotely synchronize the end unit clocks from time to time.

• Load Profile information: Interval readings can be used to produce a load profile of the total or sub-totals of customer energy usage.. Load profile data can be used both by the customer and the utility. Individual customer load profiles can be used by the customer to monitor energy usage at specific times of day or under specific circumstances. Utilities can use load profiles as part of general load surveys as well as input to Distribution Automation load models.

• Peak demand metering: Certain customer tariffs can include charges that depend on the maximum demand over the billing period. Peak demand can be derived from interval metering. Some electronic meters for C&I customers can also provide a peak demand reading.

• On-demand electric meter reading: With two-way fixed communications it may be possible to read individual meters at any time on demand. This allows readings to be taken when service is transferred to a new customer, and is useful for customer service personnel when answering inquiries and complaints by customers. One installed a demand reading capabilities for their large Commercial and Industrial (C&I) meters, with the primary objective of real time monitoring of compliance with load curtailing requests, so that customers who fail to meet their obligations can be immediately contacted.

• Energy usage and billing Information: Many customers can benefit from having access to their current energy usage, demand measurements, historical usage, and billing information. This information can be supplied locally if the customer has a building management system, or could be provided over secure connections via the Internet.

• Power quality monitoring: Capabilities to monitor voltage, harmonics, sags and surges, and other power quality characteristics in addition to diverse energy metering functions are available for electronic meters (also called digital meters) from several manufacturers, usually as extra cost options. Some meters are designed to detect and report deviations from preset power quality parameters, and other meters provide a comprehensive power quality analysis and log a large number of parameters. These meters are usually available with a variety of communications interface options such as EIA-232 and, more recently, internet interfaces, and with various communications protocols such as DNP 3.0 and MODBUS. Sophisticated electronic meters are often used in AMR systems that are limited to C&I customers, and may be included in system-wide AMR that employs simpler metering for the residential customers.

• Outage detection: Outage detection devices are installed at customer sites and call the utility as soon as power is lost. Outage detection can be included in interface modules that are added to residential meters to prepare them for AMR, and inexpensive modules just for outage reporting are also available.. Outage detection modules from Amron or Itron are plugged into any outlet and into a telephone jack at the customer's premise. These units call the utility when power goes out, and may also call to report over and under voltage. The system at the utility identifies the calling number, and therefore the account that lost power. Utilities usually place more than one outage detection unit on every branch of the distribution network in order to avoid false alarms when the customer trips a breaker in his home's electric panel or pulls the outage detection unit from the outlet.

• Tamper detection: A tamper detection capability is available in many meters, including residential meters. Such meters will identify removal of the meter from its socket or reverse power flow as tampering. Tampering event can be flagged as a status flag, logged in meters that store readings - possibly with a time stamp, or can be reported in AMR system with two-way communications. Tamper detection can also be performed by analyzing customers meter data, in particular when interval readings are available.

• "Soft" Customer connect and disconnect:  This term refers to remote reading of a meter when an account is initiated and when an account is terminated.

• "Hard" Customer connect and disconnect: As an adjunct to the meter reading capability, an AMR system with two-way communications may also allow physical disconnection and reconnection of power to a customer. This requires, obviously, a large relay rated for the capacity of the customer's circuitry.

• Load Management: Remote shedding of customer devices for peak shaving and emergency load relief can be considered the oldest customer automation function. It has been practiced for decades, starting when European utilities used "ripple control", injection of very low frequency signals into the distribution feeders to control relays at the customer homes to disconnect water heaters during peak times. Since then several communications technologies have been developed for remote control of customer loads, and the same customer communications are sometimes shared for AMR. More sophisticated load control technologies, that allow for instance remote setting of thermostats instead of shedding loads are emerging.

• Real Time Pricing (RTP): If a utility sent short term pricing information, say for the next hour, the customers could use this information to reduce cost by managing their energy consumption. RTP benefits both the utility and the customers by sharing the savings accrued from shifting loads to periods when it costs the utility less to serve them. RTP is only beginning to develop, and is beginning to be offered to large customers. When high penetration of RTP to residential customers becomes practical, the manufacturers of appliances can be expected to support it. For instance, cloths dryers may allow the user to set the appliance to start only when the cost of a kWh price goes below a certain price.

• Gas and water meter reading: Many AMR end-user units for electric meters support additional inputs, from pulse generators and possibly from encoders, for gas and water meters. This capability is obviously useful for electric and Gas utilities, but can also be a source of revenue by collecting metering data for other utilities and is, of course used by meter data management agents (MDMAs). Indeed the electric utility is in the best position to be the owner of an AMR system that is shared for gas and water metering, because electricity is readily available for an AMR end-user device at the electric meter, whereas gas and water end devices often use batteries.

• Whole house and by appliance: In-building systems usually can monitor individual appliances or areas within a building, as a means for analysis of energy usage.

• Distributed Resources management: DR devices can be monitored and controlled remotely.

Stakeholders for Customer Services

As can be seen from the long list of possible customer services, many different stakeholders must become involved in the provision of customer services. These include:

• Utility departments (which may or may not be part of larger utility entities and may or may not consist of the same group):

  • Construction department, which is responsible for designing and constructing the interconnection between the electric wires (usually distribution) and the customer site.

  • Maintenance department, which is responsible for maintaining the quality of service at the point of interconnection as was contracted between the utility and the customer, including repairs, power quality monitoring, and implementing solutions to problems.

  • Operations department, which is responsible for operating the power system in accordance with the contracted quality of service. This usually entails responding to outages by restoring power as rapidly as possible, but can include load control, requesting load reductions from interruptible customers, and, in the future, establishing current prices for energy for Real-Time Price (RTP) customers.

  • Customer services department, which interfaces with the customer. The types of interfaces vary depending upon the contracted quality of service, ranging from responding to billing questions and issues to one-on-one meetings to providing various energy services in addition to electrical energy.

  • Metering department, which provides, maintains, and periodically reads the customer meters.

  • Billing department, which calculates invoices based on each customer's tariff, energy usage and other factors.

  • Accounts receivable department, which handles payments from customers.

• Customers:

  • The electrical customer physically interconnected to the power system and receiving the electrical energy at their premises

  • The billing customer responsible for paying for the electrical services. For residential customers, this is usually is the same as the electrical customer, but for many industrial and commercial customers, often a centralized accounts payable department is responsible for handling the bills.

  • Owner of distributed resources which are electrically interconnected to the power system.

• Others:

  • Energy Service Providers (ESPs) which may provide energy services in addition to, or instead of, utilities.

  • Meter Data Management Agencies (MDMAs), which may read the customer meters in addition to, or instead of, utilities.

  • In-building service providers, which provide building energy management systems and other services for supporting customer needs.

  • Market brokers, who broker energy contracts for individual customers or aggregates of customers.

  • Distributed Resources management providers, which manage the use, operations, and/or maintenance of customer-side generation.

 

Hand-Held or Drive-by Van AMR Function

Narrative

The purpose of the Hand-Held or Drive-by Van AMR function is to perform monthly and/or special reads of customer meters. These AMR systems are primarily oriented toward residential customers, but are often used for smaller commercial and industrial customers as well. Normally different meter reading systems are used for the larger commercial and industrial customers.

The meter readers either walk or drive by customer sites, and use the mobile meter-reading device (hand-held or within a van) to read each meter using vendor-proprietary protocols. At the end of the meter reader’s shift, these mobile meter-reading devices upload the meter readings into a metering database. Typically, each customer site has its meters read once a month, but special circumstances can involve special reads. For example, if a meter reading is either “invalid” or the customer is questioning it, then a special reading may be required. Other special circumstances include disconnecting meters when customers move or fail to pay, and connecting meters when new customers move in.

In the metering system, the energy usage of each customer is determined, either as a direct read from an electronic meter or as calculated by subtracting previous meter readings of analog meters. Demand measurements per period (e.g. for each 15-minute period) are also uploaded if the electronic meters can provide that information.

The energy usage and demand measurements are then passed to the Customer Information System (CIS) and/or the Billing System.  If stored in the CIS, these energy usage and demand measurements are then available to Customer Representatives to look up and inform customers if they call in.

At the appropriate time in the billing cycle for each customer, the Billing System, using the appropriate tariffs, issues invoices to the customers based on their energy usage and, if part of their tariff, their demand measurements.

 

Steps for Hand-Held or Drive-by Van AMR

The following steps provide the details of the narrative described above.

 

 

One-Way Fixed Network AMR Function

Narrative

The purpose of the One-Way Fixed Network AMR Function is to collect meter information from customer sites, including monthly meter readings, on-demand meter readings, tamper detection, soft connects and disconnects (on-demand meter readings), and outage detection. These systems can be used for all types of customers.

The one-way fixed network AMR system must first be installed. These AMR systems are “in-bound” vendor-proprietary networks using different media, such as telephone, power line carrier, satellite pager systems, wireless cellular systems, and possibly the Internet. Different vendors provide different functionalities, which are constantly changing as technologies and equipment prices change. Some fixed network AMR systems are basically one-way, but can provide limited two-way functionality, possibly through low bandwidth signals or Internet Web pages providing information back to the customer. (For IntelliGrid Architecture project, the internal functioning of these vendor-proprietary systems is out of scope: interested readers are directed to the Web Sites of the various AMR vendors.)

The metering information is collected periodically or upon demand from the customer meters. This information can include:

·        Monthly metered energy readings

·        On-demand energy readings (used for validation, soft connects and disconnects, and customer requests)

·        Time of Use (TOU) or periodic (e.g. hourly) metered energy readings

·        Demand readings within periods

·        Tamper detection

·        Outage detection

This information is stored in a metering database with the metering system passing certain data on to other systems. For instance, the outage data is sent to the Outage Management System, while tamper detection alarms and on-demand energy readings are immediately sent to the Customer Information System, where customer representatives can use the information to pass on to customers or to initiate other actions.

In the metering system, the energy usage of each customer is determined, either as a direct read from an electronic meter or as calculated by subtracting previous meter readings of analog meters. Demand measurements per period (e.g. for each 15-minute period) are also uploaded if the electronic meters can provide that information.

The energy usage and demand measurements are then passed to the Customer Information System (CIS) and/or the Billing System.  If stored in the CIS, these energy usage and demand measurements are then available to Customer Representatives to look up and inform customers if they call in.

At the appropriate time in the billing cycle for each customer, the Billing System, using the appropriate tariffs, issues invoices to the customers based on their energy usage and, if part of their tariff, their demand measurements.

 

Steps for One-Way Fixed Network AMR

The following steps provide the details of the narrative described above.

 

 

Two-Way Fixed Network C&I Consumer Gateway

Narrative

The purpose of the true two-way fixed network C&I Consumer Gateway is to collect meter information from customer sites, and to provide control commands and information back to the customer.

These systems can theoretically be used for all types of customers, but at the present time, because of the expense of true two-way communications, the focus is primarily on commercial and industrial customers. Alternatively, for direct load control of residential customer equipment, one-way “out-bound” systems can be implemented (see Load Management). This may change as new technologies are developed.

The two-way fixed network C&I consumer gateway system must first be installed. Many of these systems are based on Itron’s MV-90 system which became the industry de facto standard for interacting with larger customers, with a number of vendors providing value-added products over the basic system. In addition, other two-way networks have been developed using vendor-proprietary protocols and equipment over different media, including telephone and wireless cellular systems. Many also rely on the Internet for providing large volumes of information back to the customer in addition to the commands or signals provided as part of the two-way system.

Different vendors provide different functionalities, which are constantly changing as technologies and equipment prices change. (For IntelliGrid Architecture project, the internal functioning of these vendor-proprietary systems is out of scope: interested readers are directed to the Web Sites of the various AMR vendors.)

Similarly to the one-way AMR system, the information is collected periodically or upon demand from the consumer gateways. This information can include:

·        Monthly metered energy readings

·        On-demand energy readings (used for validation, soft connects and disconnects, and customer requests)

·        Time of Use (TOU) or periodic (e.g. hourly) metered energy readings

·        Demand readings within periods

·        Tamper detection

·        Outage detection

This information is stored in a metering database with the metering system passing certain data on to other systems. For instance, the outage data is sent to the Outage Management System, while tamper detection alarms and on-demand energy readings are immediately sent to the Customer Information System, where customer representatives can use the information to pass on to customers or to initiate other actions.

In the metering system, the energy usage of each customer is determined, either as a direct read from an electronic meter or as calculated by subtracting previous meter readings of analog meters. Demand measurements per period (e.g. for each 15-minute period) are also uploaded if the electronic meters can provide that information.

The energy usage and demand measurements are then passed to the Customer Information System (CIS) and/or the Billing System.  If stored in the CIS, these energy usage and demand measurements are then available to Customer Representatives to look up and inform customers if they call in.

At the appropriate time in the billing cycle for each customer, the Billing System, using the appropriate tariffs, issues invoices to the customers based on their energy usage and, if part of their tariff, their demand measurements.

The information provided to the customer can include:

·        Load management direct control commands, that provide direct remote control over customer equipment, such as air conditioning, heating, water heaters, pool pumps, and other equipment over which the customer has agreed to allow remote control.

·        Distributed Energy Resources (DER) direct control commands, that provide direct control over customer generation equipment

·        Load curtailment signals, that request the customer to control load and/or their DER equipment but do not actually issue the control commands, thus putting the customer more closely in the load management loop to decide how best to meet these requirements

·        Aggregated load curtailment signals, that request the customer to negotiate with members of a group of customers (which was previously established as an aggregated group of customers) to determine which members of the group will curtail how much load

·        Pricing signals, that indicate the cost of energy and/or demand for the current period or in the future

·        Energy and demand usage information, that provides usage information, such as current rate of energy usage, current demand level, energy usage since last billing, energy usage over the last 24 hours, etc.

·        Billing information, such as current billing charges, historical billing information, projected billing charges at current rate of energy usage, etc.

 

Steps for Two-Way Fixed Network C&I Consumer Gateway

The following steps provide the details of the narrative described above.