PRI is involved in a number of AMI projects in the UK as the Government and Energy Suppliers tackle the challenge of delivering "Smart Metering" for both domestic and business consumers.
Building upon the experience of the Liberty "pay-as-you-go" technology, first deployed in Northern Ireland nearly ten years ago, PRI have evolved their AMI product offering to include gas metering, in-home displays, heating controls and a portfolio of communications solutions.
In these projects they deploy single and three phase electricity meters with inbuilt load switching, electronic/diaphragm hybrid gas meters with built in valves and real time in-home displays. These smart metering solutions are supported by Zigbee low power radio mesh networks in the home and have wide area connectivity through any of the following:
- Global System mobile (GSM)
- Short Message Service (SMS)
- General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
- Distribution Line Carrier (DLC)
- Power Line Carrier (PLC)
- Mesh Radio
All AMI product offerings from PRI are designed to deliver benefits to both the utilities and the consumers. For the utility the focus is on timely and accurate billing, lower cost to serve, debt recovery, customer acquisition and retention, revenue protection and tariff optimisation. For the consumer the focus is on lower cost through the reduction of wastage and competitive tariffs, energy efficiency coupled with the ability to control heating load, environmental protection through the understanding of the carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalence of their energy use and flexible methods of payment.
In particular, PRI's range of user interface, the in-home displays, have been developed to demonstrate the varied effect of the different ways data is presented to consumers, the goal being to establish which method of presentation delivers the best results from given socio-demographic groups. The devices deployed range from simple textual displays with numeric keypads to colour touch-screens with graphical content. In some cases data can also be presented to consumers via the Internet or via their TV.
www.intergage.co.uk
