Innovative meter reading with a Danish touch
June 1st 2008

Requiring a low cost, tailored automatic solution, Fjernvarme Fyn, the third-largest district heating company in Denmark, started a development project with the Danish company Kamstrup. Based on the ideas of Fjernvarme Fyn and the technological knowledge of Kamstrup an automated drive-by-solution, performing remote meter reading on a large scale was found

Fjernvarme Fyn wanted a simple solution to read all of its existing meters – approx. 60,000 in numbers.Having personnel driving around in the area collecting data would demand considerable resources, since the personnel allocated for the job would be 100% occupied with meter reading.

Different possibilities of drive-by solutions were investigated and finally the choice was made to use the existing logistical network of the local municipal sanitation service.

Fjernvarme Fyn contacted the local authorities – the owners of the municipal sanitation service – in order to make an agreement concerning placing data reading devices in the garbage trucks.

Establishing such an agreement was not difficult since the work of the garbage truck operators would be completely unaffected by the device.They can carry on as usual, unaware of the fact, that they now collect heat consumption data, just passing by households in the street.

In the city of Odense, garbage is collected twice a month and wanting to read the meters once a month, Fjernvarme Fyn has two chances of receiving data per month in case the truck somehow cannot get into contact with the meter.This assures a high success rate.

How does it work? The garbage trucks that operate in the local area have been mounted with data collecting units and via radio communication the meter data (meter identification and meter data) is retrieved from the heat meters.

At the district heating plant the central data system 'calls' the garbage trucks once a day and collects the data via GSM/GPRS.

All data are stored in a customer file and forwarded to Fjernvarme Fyn's own billing system for the purpose of internal analysis and forecasting programmes.

Fjernvarme Fyn now receives meter data once a month with very high success rate in readings.

The immediate results and benefits are economic, as the utility optimises costs for the meter reading process. By creative thinking combined with innovative new technology and existing resources, the costs for meter reading such as personnel and means for transportation are substantially minimised.

In future there multi-utility benefits can be found, as the system is laid out to handle data from both electricity and water consumption.

Also the system is fully scalable, meaning that the number of measuring points can be extended infinitely.

Why remote reading? In the case of Fjernvarme Fyn the advantages of remote reading were clear from the start. Instead of annual meter readings they can now read the meters every month. In this way they can supervise the monthly energy consumption of each particular household, and they can discover problems like leaks or a low heat extraction in a very early stage, and offer targeted proactive service to customers.

The frequent monitoring of heat consumption also forms a basis for household level analysis where consumers can supervise their consumption. Fjernvarme Fyn is planning to place the collected data on their internet site at the consumer's disposal.

In the finance department the data forms the basis for better economy management.They have now access to valid data for heat sales prognosis and accurate billing.

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