Lattice gas meter wins European Utility Award for Innovation

15/10/07

Sentec’s innovative gas metering technology Lattice has won the European Utility Award for Innovation presented on Wednesday at the metering industry’s biggest event, Metering, Billing & CRM Europe. The award recognises excellence in the industry and is given to the most creative project that leads to a new view of utility metering, billing or customer relationship management.

The award was judged by a panel of industry experts, including Accenture and Synergy, who described Lattice as an innovation with significant potential for bringing smart metering to the gas market at a realistic price point.

Lattice uses the time of flight principle to measure the volume of gas being used, marking the gas as it enters a portion of the pipe running through a meter, and measuring the time taken by the gas between two points. The gas is marked using a simple technique new to the metering sector, but commonly used in other systems, including household devices. Latest tests show compliance with the demanding standards set by the Measuring Instruments Directive, particularly a very high level of accuracy on natural gas. This is coupled with low power requirements and excellent resistance to debris or fluid in the pipe.

Sentec can show that the technology can be used to build gas meters at much lower cost than existing solid state meters. An affordable solid state gas meter will provide a platform for a variety of value adding features such as AMR, AMM, tamper alerts, automatic safety cut-offs, load profiling, TOU metering and displays to influence customer behaviour. The last is particularly relevant to the UK market, where the government has recently announced its intention for all households to have smart meters installed by 2015.

Richard King, Sentec’s chairman, commented: ‘This award is a recognition of the substantial resources we have committed to the development of Lattice over the past twelve months, which follows naturally from our commitment to all the smart metering markets. Wherever you look in the world, the markets seem to be moving towards smart metering, driven by a combination of needs for utilities to improve their efficiency and for consumers to be more aware of their consumption. Lattice provides a splendid opportunity for the gas market to achieve smart metering on a much larger scale than previously seen.’

Sentec is now entering the final stages of discussions about exploiting the technology via partners and remains on target to agree its first deals early in 2008.

Further information: Hermione Crease, Sentec, +44(1223)303800, press@sentec.co.uk