What is “Automated Meter Reading,” “Advanced Meters” and “Advanced Metering?
” According to several recent surveys by senior-level energy managers, only “Clean Coal Technology” surpasses “Advanced Meter Reading” as the technology that has the greatest potential to transform the energy industry by 2015. To define “Advanced Meter Reading” requires that we first define what “Advanced Meters” are. For decades, utility companies had meters that were “dumb” in that they were no more than measuring devices that measured the amount of electricity (in kWh’s and KW’s), water (in gallons) or natural gas (in ccf’s). Each month, as many as three – sometimes more – different meter readers would come by to write down what the “dumb” meter read, which would be the amount of electricity, water or natural gas your business used in that previous 4 week period, or “billing cycle.” At the end of the day, the meter reader – who may read as many as 500 meters in a typical day, would turn in his/her measurements of the meters that he/she read that day to the accounting department, tha
