water remote metering

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rudiemm
2012-02-07 09:12

Question:
Is water remote metering a problem or can one get it done reasonably easily using the existing city infrastructure.


Tags: check meter
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rudiemm
2012-02-07 09:13

Answer:
Water is doable, but it is more effort, generally more expensive, and you have to have lower expectations:


  • more effort, because it is measured through pulses, and you have to make sure the electronic unit is synchronized to the actual meter. So your technicians have to go out to site more and can mess it up more easily.
  • more expensive, because, for example, you need minimum a modem AND a Waveport AND a Meter-Interface-Unit (MIU, that counts the pulses and converts to RF - the waveport is a device to convert from RS232 to RF) )
  • more expensive, because when your MIU battery gets flat, you have to replace the whole unit. (R600+). More effort because you must be careful not to read them too much, because then your batteries get flat more quickly.
  • lower expectations, because you can generally expect 1 reading every week. You don't get as nice a profile graph. We're working on fixing this, but it is still in the works.
  • more expensive, because water is cheaper than electricity, therefore from a revenue perspective more difficult to justify.
However, especially in the cases where water meters are difficult to get to, or meter readings are inaccurate or reading unsafe or reading fees exorbitant, this can work very well.
The batteries last for 10 years, so they say. If I have to bank it, I'd do my calculations on 5 years, just in case, because if someone configures the AMR wrong, and we read it as much as we read Electricity Meters, the battery can go flat in 3 to 6 months.
The water guys doesn't understand that you want a unit with a replaceable battery that is integrated into an actual water meter yet. They have units in England where the meter and MIU are integrated, saving a LOT of effort for the installations guy, but the batteries are not replaceable, and Elster Water in South Africa doesn't want to bring them in. Paul knows those batteries that they use, and in a store they cost less than R30.
There are lots of factors to consider with water, but in a nutshell, the above is the state of the landscape, as far as we know. There are other guys in South Africa doing water that I'm aware of, but they generally do not go for profile either, and are also battery driven, so it is essentially the same situation, with the added caveat that they are generally vertical systems with closed protocols that doesn't integrate to anyone else. There can be water guys that I'm not aware of, since water guys tend to be still more isolated from each other in the market that the electricity guys, although maybe I'm just more peripheral in water than in electricity. But our water network is still expanding all the time, all the same, although it is slower than with electricity.
It is more difficult to develop hardware for water also, because they are battery driven, and uses ultra low power circuits, which is like a speciality field.


Tags: chargesconsumptiondemand
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