Unlocking the Smart Meter Market
The measurement of electric current and power is at the heart of energy measurement and billing systems. Electricity meters have been sold at volumes of tens of millions of units per annum for 100 years, but over the last decade smart metering roll outs have imposed a requirement for higher accuracy, wider dynamic range and improved functionality.
At the beginning of the decade, solid state smart metering designs were becoming the norm, offering improvements in accuracy and stability over traditional mechanical meters, but at a cost. Sentec had identified this as market opportunity and developed a potential metrology solution, ideal for integrating into a range of smart metering products.
Sensus are now one of the top 5 AMI suppliers in North America
Sensus Metering Systems, market leaders in gas and water metering, had also spotted opportunities in electricity metering. They were among the first in the market to spot the opportunity to collect water, gas and electricity data at one point through a wireless communications hub. The link could not be battery powered, so the ideal solution was to make it part of an electricity meter.
After extensive market research Sensus had developed requirements for a smart metering product that would be accurate, affordable and provide flexibility in communications solutions. The core of an electricity meter is the current sensor, and this presented an opportunity to challenge the conventional approach and develop an entirely new sensor, formed out of the same circuit board needed by the electronics.
This approach has a number of benefits - low cost, inherent linearity, strong IP - which were clear to our partner. It also allows a modular approach to meter construction and installation, and lowers the costs of installing and changing AMR solutions.
Based on this design, Sensus and Sentec embarked on a full scale product design effort to create electricity metering products for the emerging AMR and AMI market. The partnership was built around a licence agreement, giving Sentec a long term interest in the meter's success. The project has seen close co-operation from prototype to product, requiring Sentec's input at every stage, and we continue to work with Sensus add products to the range (see, for example, the case study on the disconnect meter challenge).
We passed the milestone installation of the 10 millionth iCon meter in 2011
Nearly a decade later, Sensus are now one of the top 5 AMI suppliers in North America, with a particular strength in point to point AMI solutions and major accounts across the USA. Our relationship with Sensus is still strong, and we reached the milestone installation of the 10 millionth iCon meter in 2011.
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A Custom Smart Electricity Meter for the UK market
As part of this customisation challenge, they chose to incorporate Sentec’s Mobius current sensor, featuring sophisticated and accurate metrology and communications interface. It provides a highly…
