Elster Expands Smart Grid Salt River Project with MDM Solution
Elster and the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District (SRP) announced today that the utility, which is the third-largest public power utility in the United States, will deploy Elster's EnergyICT EIServer meter data management (MDM) solution to manage more than 900,000 planned advanced metering devices in Elster's EnergyAxis® system throughout the utility's service territory.
SRP estimates that the Elster EnergyAxis solution has enabled the Arizona utility to remotely address more than 1.2 million service orders, save more than 401,000 labor hours, avoid more than two million driving miles and conserve 198,000 gallons of fuel.
The EnergyICT MDM deployment empowers SRP with the intelligence required to make more informed energy management and pricing decisions, enhance operational processes and deliver advanced customer services.
EnergyICT's MDM and network management solution will perform detailed smart meter data analysis on information collected from every Elster AMI endpoint, providing additional benefits to SRP's customers, including flexible pricing strategies in the form of time-of-use (TOU).
The MDM deployment will provide SRP with a number of operational benefits, such as work-flow management to integrate processes and data, improved sampling and expanded data options for load research, more accurate forecasting to improve power buy and sell decisions, real-time data processing, asset optimization and demand response. The implementation of the EnergyICT MDM system is currently underway and expected to complete in July 2011.
"Given the immense operational savings and award-winning customer feedback that we have received from Elster's EnergyAxis AMI solution, we trust the Elster brand to deliver the same high quality level and rich features in their MDM solution," said Michael Lowe, SRP's manager of Customer Services-Power.
"MDM is a critical component of the Smart Grid, delivering enhanced services for both the utility and our customers," Lowe added.
Since 2003, SRP has paved the way for Smart Meter technology among U.S. electric utilities, with focused consumer initiatives that have resulted in several J.D. Power and Associates honors for customer satisfaction in business and residential electric service. In October 2009, the Department of Energy awarded a matching grant to SRP under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's SGIG initiative to help further its Smart Grid deployment.
"With its rich legacy of innovation, customer service and industry leadership, we are proud to have SRP represent one of Elster Group's first joint AMI/MDM deployments," said Claude Godin, president of EnergyICT (North America).
"As the very first AMI deployment in the U.S., SRP continues to represent the Smart Grid success blueprint for utilities of all sizes to follow. By combining the EnergyICT MDM solution with its existing large scale AMI deployment, SRP will have unmatched visibility and control of energy usage, helping the utility deliver new services that cut costs and reduce consumption," added Godin.