ATLANTA, Jan. 8, 2004 -- After appearing to drop over the past few years, the cost of automated meter reading technology has appeared to level off, concludes a new report from Atlanta-based energy research leader Chartwell Inc.
The report, Chartwell's AMR Report on Cost and Savings, includes specific price estimates for AMR in general and various AMR technologies, including powerline carrier, wireless fixed network, mobile (drive-by) and phone-based systems.
The costs are based on data provided during Chartwell's past two annual AMR surveys of 100-plus utilities, as well as other sources.
Chartwell's AMR Report on Cost and Savings also provides potential savings that various areas, including meter reading, call centers and engineering, can gain from timely data collected by automated systems.
In addition, the report includes financial and business case details from various utilities that have installed AMR and the large customer service and supply-side savings that a hypothetical utility of 500,000 customers could potentially gain from AMR.
The report concludes that utilities can reap supply side savings related to transmission and distribution planning, generation expansion, demand response and load forecasting. Other revenue opportunities include power quality monitoring, outage notification and load profile data services.
The 34-page report includes four chapters of analysis and four case studies, including one that examines how an electric cooperative in Illinois paid about $194 per meter to install a powerline carrier system.
Chartwell's AMR Report on Costs and Savings, which is available for $395, is part of Chartwell's AMR and Advanced Metering Research Series, the only unbiased monthly publication devoted exclusively to the AMR industry.
The Series includes monthly topical reports, news reports and case studies on trends and technologies in the AMR industry in addition to annual reports with analysis of surveys of 100-plus utilities. Membership in The AMR Research Series is available.
For more information about Chartwell's AMR Report on Costs and Savings or the AMR Research Series, please contact Juli Collins at (800) 432-5879 or (404) 237-9099. For additional information about Chartwell and its various publications, please visit www.energylibrary.com .
