Real-Time Monitoring
Staff -- Consulting-Specifying Engineer, 6/1/2002
Although real-time monitoring of electricity use has been available to large industrial users for years, a new offering from a small Texas utility company is bringing the technology to smaller residential and commercial customers as well.
Sharyland Utilities, serving the Sharyland Plantation mixed-use development along the Texas-Mexico border, is offering daily updated energy-use profiles for all its customers, including residential users. Therefore, customers have access to their hourly kilowatt use—in both numerical and graphical formats—at no charge.
The utility was already at the forefront of metering technology, with automated meter reading for all its customers who can now log on to a secure web site to view their previous day's electrical usage. Utility managers hope that providing this information will encourage customers to conserve.
The service was implemented by metering-systems developer Utility Data Resources, Inc., based in Arlington, Texas. UDR also plans to offer up-to-the-minute energy information to the utility's customers at an additional cost.
From Pure Power, Summer 2002.
