POWER METERING, MONITORING AND CONTROL

An Interval Meter...Watt?

"Meters -- a little noticed but ubiquitous and vital part of the infrastructure of the electric and natural gas industries -- are suddenly at the leading edge of industry restructuring. Information technology now stands to revolutionize the 1930s technological backwater of meter reading, and the business of energy distribution will never be the same."

This simple quote from Cambridge Energy Research Associates really says quite a bit. Most of the meters in place today have not changed much since the early days of their introduction. Their main purpose was to measure quantity and then it was quite simple for the utility to calculate their bills by just applying their approved rate structure.

But today, especially here in Ontario, the restructuring of our electrical marketplace has changed, or at least added to, the purpose of the meter.

Not only will the utility continue the need for quantity information in order to bill properly, but now the utility will need to ensure that when the change of ownership of the electrons takes place at their input meter point, they have to ensure that what is billed to them is actually what they recorded -- and in many cases it will have to be not simply how much over a month but how much over as little as a five minute interval!

For landlords and property managers the day of choice has come for electricity; however, there is a catch -- in order to avail yourself of choice, you must have an interval meter in order to measure, on a more finite basis, the electron flow. This way you will be able to know not only how much you used, but exactly when you used it and prove it. Software will then allow you to graph this information to determine your load profile which will show the shape of your peaks and valleys over a period of time. This may be done on an individual building basis or aggregated basis or even by geographic region. It is this information that will be needed to 'go to market'. You can go to market either directly or via a retailer or marketer. One of the options they then have is to further aggregate similar profiles and then go and get you the best price possible.

You will then benefit from this group buying strategy. And in today's day and age of energy conservation and eco-system protection, having this information would also allow you to purchase 'green' power, if you so wish, with the resulting public relations of marketing your building as a 'green' building.

Additional benefits in interval submetering your building are also available as well as the option of using your existing power line infrastructure for remote communications, thereby avoiding the more expensive and inconvenient option of re-cabling your building in order to communicate with your tenants meters.....