Walking the talk
August 1st 2007

Utility Partnership (UPL) from Cardiff has completed what it claims is the largest single-company contract in the UK for advanced metering with TMobile.

As part of one of the largest telecom companies in the world, TMobile serve over 17 million customers in the UK alone. With a constantly growing network involving many thousands of sites, electricity plays a major part in overall business costs.

Following the recent sharp increases in electricity prices,TMobile were determined to lessen the impact of these increases and its high number of estimated bills and sought advice from UPL.

As part of a competitive process, UPL proposed the installation of the latest generation of 'Smart Meters' for all T-Mobile network sites to replace the old Electricity Board meters. By using these meters, readings are sent automatically to the electricity supplier by using mobile phone technology so removing the need for a visit by a meter reader – this has always been a problem with so many remote sites.

Not only will Smart Meters give TMobile accurate bills but UPL are also providing web-enabled halfhourly profile electricity consumption data to check that sites are performing as efficiently as possible and take action where savings can be made.

'For a major project like this, you need to make sure that all links in the chain of the project are strong and doing their job' explained UPL chairman,Gary Mawer. 'Our national installation teams use the latest hand-held technology and TMobile's own network both to guide them into a site and get the meter details back into the billing system without delay'.

With 60% of sites completed ahead of schedule, the project was completed this summer and UPL has helped T-Mobile get rid of estimated bills, understand and control their energy consumption as well as using the information to drive a better deal with suppliers for their next energy contract.

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