Title
Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Update (B)
Explanation
Advanced Metering Infrastructure has quickly become one of the top initiatives for utilities around the U.S. Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is an integrated system of smart meters, communications networks, and data management systems that enable two-way communication between utilities and customers. These systems provide a number of important functions that were not previously possible or had to be performed manually, such as the ability to automatically and remotely measure consumer consumption, connect and disconnect services, detect meter tampering, identify and isolate outages, and monitor voltage.
AMI technology offers utilities valuable information about customer usage, including consumption behavior, effects of external variables and outages. Both the customer and the utility are able to find out how energy is used within the home. The knowledge of the customer’s usage improves the customer service representatives’ ability to work with a customer to understand his or her bill, which in turn increases customer confidence in the billing process. Additionally, the consumer will have the ability to monitor and change their usage, which could result in a lower energy bill. The overall results are better customer interaction, improved quality of service and shortened response times to outages.
In 2014, as AMI started to become a household name in the industry, GRU decided to rollout a small pilot program. An Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) was issued and an AMI vendor was awarded the opportunity to participate. This vendor provided an AMI solution that gave us the ability to investigate functions of smart meters, head end system software, and various types of communication protocols. This pilot program was rolled out strategically over a four-year period and the tests consisted of automated internal controls, meter to cash integrations (AMI meter data combined with billing system req...
Click here for full text