Joint-Use Utility Infrastructure: Real-World Applications and Troubleshooting with Electric and Gas Utilities

ComEd (Exelon), an electric utility, provides access to its fully built-out industry level, secured AMI network to the gas utilities, Peoples and North Shore Gas (WEC Group). This allows 1.2 million gas meters to gain the benefits of AMI technology without the investment in time and money of   building out a separate single-use network. Multi-purpose networks such as ComEd’s, which contains ComEd’s AMI electric meters and smart streetlights, alongside an external natural gas utilities’ smart gas meters (in addition to   external municipality-owned smart water meters) are both a novel and an efficient solution in the modern communities these utilities serve. A year into this partnership, the two distinct utilities have established a variety of protocols for managing the deployment and the successful communication of smart gas meters on ComEd's AMI mesh network. With almost a quarter of a million gas endpoints deployed to date, day to day operations and   collaboration between the two utilities is crucial to managing the   partnership. The operations aspect involves two separate companies with their own data access and data visibility, institutional field knowledge, and two different work management processes. This session will focus on the   application of a range of radiofrequency remediation solutions to reinforce and strengthen the mesh network, including but not limited to socketAPs, relays, smart streetlights, MPACs, as well as upcoming devices such as the   streetlight microAP. Troubleshooting devices like the FSU and IMR are also within scope. The partnership is founded on collaboration using such technologies, data management, and deployment strategies, as steps are taken   to move to steady-state operations.