| Despite
the somewhat low profile of a majority of the world's electric
metering departments this group's activities have been the
glue that holds the utility together. As long as most of us
can remember, meter reading has been strictly a business
process that has been used to account for a customer's
electricity consumption. This physical link between a utility
and its customers has long been established as the key to the
Will new regulation
and a free enterprise market affect these entrenched
processes? A recent analysis of this topic indicates some
profound changes are on the horizon in which commercial,
industrial, and maybe "aggregated" residential customer
billing processes are forcing utilities to chart a new course
of action. A few of the marketing programs being prepared by
energy services companies may well include unrestricted (or a
"ceiling amount" of) electricity use in exchange for fixed
fees paid in each billing cycle. Perhaps the long-established
metering function we all know so well may longer be required
with such programs.
One thing is
certain, electricity consumption and demand meters will
continue to be the basis by which most accounting for
cost-based usage is accomplished. The questions on most
metering department employees' minds today concern meter
ownership, metering data ownership and metering data privacy.
Most areas of the world are currently struggling with these
yet unanswered questions.
In a recently
completed Newton-Evans' study of information systems managers,
metering information was the most sought after data type by
utility finance department officials. It was second in
importance among marketing executives and third among business
planners. Among investor-owned utilities in the United States,
revenue metering was the business application of greatest
interest to utility decision-makers. In that same study,
automatic meter reading (AMR) applications were looked upon as
one of the top areas for full service area deployment for new
technologies over the next few years.
The opportunity to
move AMR may not be universal in appeal, especially prior to
reformulation of state-by-state regulations regarding
ownership of such "strategic" assets as meters and metering
information. It is still up to each state (and perhaps
provinces, regions, countries) to decide whether metering and
billing - and customer information services in general -
should remain the purview of the power distribution entity in
the "retail choice" environment or whether metering, billing
and customer systems should be provided by "third parties." If
we look at the public power sector or the cooperative sector
of the industry, there seems little reason for these
"aggregators" (in retail wheeling sense) to willingly
relinquish their links with millions of individual small
consumers.
How is the metering
industry responding to these business changes? Old-line
revenue metering manufacturers such as ABB, GE, Schlumberger
and Siemens are expanding their commitment to the AMR
initiative. Additionally, as specialists in the AMR business,
firms such as Itron, Cellnet, American Innovations, Metricom
and American Meter have spent the past decade nurturing the
use of AMR. Taken together, the metering industry is
attempting to educate the world's utilities and energy
services companies about the many advanced features available
with current metering and monitoring technology. In an
upcoming column, I will discuss non-revenue metering
applications in the electric supply industry and among
industrial and commercial users.
Overall, the list of
attributes available from the metering industry is
commendable. These advanced, value-added metering features
certainly look appealing to a variety of retail energy service
companies, today's power distribution utilities and an
increasing astute customer base. However, the question of who
should own and operate these meters in this brave new world is
open.
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