Multi-utility communication architectures: The actual experience

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:192080

Kinsman, C

Utilities must gain better control over their resources by determining how energy is actually being used and what caused it to be used at those specific times. With the use of this information, utilities can identify which loads are the easiest to control and which beneficially alter the load curve while incurring the least amount of inconvenience to their customers. This intense lack of information is not specific to any one type of utility. What all gas, water and electric utilities have in common is their same lack of information regarding their customers` consumption patterns. If this were a generic manufacturing company or industry we were examining it would be similar to this organization operating without product sales and marketing information. Acquiring information about one`s customer is a vital criteria to staying in business--especially in a competitive world! Capturing more frequent meter reads and monitoring all customer segments -- commercial, industrial and residential--on a daily and sometimes hourly basis, provides the sales data so vital to addressing the optimization of operations currently being faced by gas, water and electric utilities today! Many forward thinking utilities acknowledge that automation and telecommunication technologies could be harnessed to solve many of these concerns but these same utilities having an in depth knowledge of the status of technology today site two key reasons that stand in the way of installing electronic technology-based initiatives -- end-device costs and communications costs. It is for this reason that multi-utility trials that share the costs and the risks are receiving a serious second look by utilities that are servicing the same customer base. Automated Communication Links has worked on several of these installations (successfully) and would like to take this opportunity to relate some of the findings derived from these actual installations.

• OSTI ID: 192080
• Report Number(s): CONF-940129--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
COMMUNICATIONS
COMPUTER NETWORKS
CONTROL
INFORMATION
LOAD MANAGEMENT
MANAGEMENT
POWER SYSTEMS