Unlocking Potential in Rural Areas

I recently had a wonderful opportunity to get into the backcountry and saw a quieter side of life where people lead a seemingly laid-back, low-stress lifestyle but still were enjoying all the modern amenities, including the electricity grid. 

It struck me that in these rural environments, it would be really beneficial for the utility to have more information about the grid, how it is loaded, when it is down and if it is being used efficiently or abused. Distances between dwellings and communities are far, it takes time and costs a lot to carry out physical audits on a regular basis.  It would also be useful for the consumers to have more visibility about how much energy they are using and when they are using it. 

Everybody in the area uses prepay electricity, but it is the old one-way STS format where there is no feedback from the meter and the local utility is pretty much blind beyond the regional substation. 

With this older STS system, the consumer is better off than the utility because they can look at the meter display to see how much credit they still have available – but they must be at home to see what is going on because that is where the meter is. Some of the farmers and seasonal workers told me they often forget to look at the meter when they get back home and only remember to recharge the meter credit when they are disconnected. It’s irritating when it happens while watching sports or preparing dinner. They would love some kind of early warning. 

Statistics show that losses from 10% to 25% are not uncommon in the local distribution network, some of it is due to fraud. These losses can have a significant impact on the utility’s ability to properly service its customers. 

What to do? Dropping prepayment and deploying AMI is one option, but consumers are used to the flexibility prepayment offers. They pay when they have money available, as much as they want or can afford, and don’t have to try to save until the end of the month. 

The solution is to deploy AMI but keep prepayment as the billing option. There are 2 ways of doing this, both supported by Itron. The most flexible option is to deploy a thin prepayment where the prepayment functionality is orchestrated from the system. Another option is to use a hybrid method where the meter retains its prepayment capability and control but the credit tokens are delivered over the air via the AMI system. 

In either case, the payback for the utility is immediate. The utility gets real-time data about grid activities, enabling them to promptly identify issues and take whatever necessary corrective action is required to ensure optimal grid performance. Additionally, thin prepayment systems empower utilities to design intricate time-varying tariffs allowing them to better manage the varying demand patterns throughout the day, week, or even season and utilize the benefit of distributed generation often found in diverse energy landscapes like rural communities.  

For both the thin prepayment and hybrid prepayment, the consumer now has an app that can show them how they are using energy, warns them when they have limited credit left and they can recharge their prepay account directly from the app, eliminating the need to rush home to type in tokens. Management and control of their energy use becomes so much easier.