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Municipal and Cooperative Utilities Embrace the Smart Metering Evolution

Municipal and Cooperative Utilities Embrace the Smart Metering Evolution

By Greg Myers
Global Vice President, Product Management
Uplevel Your Utility with the Proven Benefits of AMI

While Automated Meter Reading (AMR) has served us well, transitioning to more advanced technologies is akin to moving from paper maps to GPS navigation. It’s about embracing efficiency and accuracy for the future. Within the U.S., municipal and cooperative utilities, which together make up approximately 35% of all utilities, are pivotal to delivering reliable and affordable electricity to the communities they serve.

As the energy sector continues to undergo significant transformation, the shift from AMR to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is accelerating. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), overall AMI penetration has reached 80%, with 130.6 million smart electric meters in the U.S.

Electric cooperatives using AMI meters now outnumber those using AMR meters by three to one. In rural and smaller communities, AMI is essential for solving communication issues between meters and utilities affordably.

Municipal utilities transitioning from AMR to AMI are leveraging advanced meter capabilities to address challenges like power outages, reliable reporting, and demand response.

For those electric utilities who have yet to upgrade to smart meters and face unique challenges such as limited resource management and the need for efficient operations, Trilliant’s edge-ready, scalable AMI solutions offer essential flexibility, reliability, and security. Our device-independent head-end system integrates seamlessly with any meter, device, or application. With over 40 million smart meters deployed and in progress worldwide, we understand the needs of today’s utilities and can easily scale to meet the unique requirements of cooperatives and municipalities.

 

How Utilities Can Help Customers Win

Electricity demand compared to last year has increased due to factors such as fluctuations in supply and price, weather patterns, aging grid capacity and infrastructure, and/or overall growing demand from growing urban areas, data centers and AI, and industrial activity.

For utilities looking to manage the change in loads and help customers manage their usage, analytics programs can help optimize various operational processes through data-driven insights, improving overall efficiency and productivity.

Combined with machine learning algorithms, analytics becomes an effective aggregator that can pull historical data and current usage patterns for utilities to help customers forecast their energy consumption. Trilliant’s Analytics as a Service is a powerful tool that gives utilities several ways to positively impact their customers with any type of weather planning.

AaaS provides accurate forecasts of energy consumption patterns and identifies peak usage times, that helps utilities incentivize customers to reduce their consumption, and manage supply and demand more effectively. From there, customers can plan their budgets more effectively to save money, and even receive personalized recommendations on how to further reduce energy consumption during the winter months from optimizing heating systems, improving home insulation, and using energy-efficient appliances.

AaaS excels in predictive maintenance. It goes beyond analyzing usage to anticipate equipment failures and schedule maintenance proactively, thereby reducing downtime and operational costs.

All of these demand response programs enhance customer experience and enable them to prepare for possible disruptions, manage their bills, find incentives to adjust their usage, and receive quicker restoration during unplanned downtimes.

Another great capability of Trilliant’s AaaS is Non-Technical Losses (NTL) and Fraud Detection that identifies anomalies indicating energy theft or loss, allowing utilities to take corrective actions, and enhance the utilities security and trust.

By leveraging Analytics as a Service, utilities can empower their customers with the tools and information they need to manage their energy usage more effectively during the winter months, leading to cost savings and improved satisfaction.

Is your utility ready for the next wave of smart metering?

Discover how Trilliant can help future-proof your utility with next-generation AMI, which is core to our Power of Choice value proposition.