How Smart Meters Work > Smart Metering - From the meter to the bill

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Smart meters

As soon as a customer's traditional meter is removed and replaced with a smart meter, the newly installed smart meter begins recording electricity consumption data in hourly intervals. What makes these meters "smart" is that they can be remotely programmed to report data in time-of-use blocks as well as the more traditional total kilowatt-hour register read. Upon installation, the smart meter also begins communicating with collectors and other smart meters via its internal 900 MHz radio, which is capable of sending and receiving messages. The 900 MHz radio signal is the same technology used in other wireless products in your home such as cordless phones and wireless internet devices. Each group of meters and their collector communicate via a Local Area Network (LAN). Smart meters perform two tasks; they measure the customer's electricity usage and act as repeaters for neighbouring meters. In this way, each meter doesn't have to talk directly to the collector. Instead, meters in between the most distant meters relay the messages. This relaying of messaging between meters is known as "hopping." In our system, the data may hop up to eight times from meter to meter to communicate with a collector. Hopping allows the LAN to maximize communication distances.

Collectors

The collector, installed in a PVC box and mounted on one of our hydro poles, receives consumption data wirelessly from approximately 500 surrounding smart meters. This consumption data is transferred from the collector to the Advanced Metering Central Computer (AMCC) by another wireless communication medium called a Wide Area Network (WAN). Although the WAN serves a similar purpose to the LAN, it is able to transfer data further distances. The daily consumption data is then sent to the provincial Meter Data Management/Repository (MDM/R) system by the AMCC.

Advanced Metering Central Computer (AMCC)

Horizon Utilities' smart meter read schedules are maintained by our AMCC, located in the Customer Connections Department at our John Street of office. The AMCC sends daily messages to the collector units to communicate all of the reads for its meters via the WAN. The system reads all residential meters each night, and obtains a demand read for commercial customers once per month. The WAN gathers data from all of our collectors, which are strategically located throughout the city. WAN options that we researched as part of our Smart Meter Pilot Project included: cable networks, wireless modems, Wi-Fi and bre optics. After carefully assessing and testing each option, we decided to use wireless modems as our WAN technology.

Provincial Meter Data Management/Repository

The provincial MDM/R system is currently being established. The MDM/R project is being coordinated and managed by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). As dictated by the timing of the billing schedule, or upon request by Horizon Utilities, the MDM/R system will send bill-ready files to us for processing and billing through our CIS.

Billing

To ensure the accuracy of customer data, every Horizon meter will be assigned a unique Service Delivery Point Identification (SDPID) number to identify itself to the MDM/R system. Using these numbers, the CIS will validate that metering and customer information is consistent between our AMCC and the provincial MDM/R system. Once time-of-use rates come into effect, Horizon Utilities will use the data collected by the smart meter to bill customers according to when they use electricity.

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