Advantages of the NES System
The NES System offers many advantages over meter-focused and a la carte smart metering solutions. These advantages stem from our system approach. Our components — smart meters, data concentrators, and system software — work together to meet the needs of the smart metering and AMI markets from the perspective of the grid, not just the meter.
- Maximizes grid intelligence while minimizing operating costs by embedding communications and monitoring directly into the electricity grid.
- Creates an open environment for competitive services to adapt, modify, and extend their energy and metering services, using market-leading software, hardware, and service providers.
- Eliminates risk by freeing a utility to focus on its primary network asset — the electricity grid — by leveraging established, IP-based backhaul communications providers regardless of technology.
- Delivers certainty that the system will perform to customers’ and stakeholders’ expectations through a history of reliability, performance, and cost savings provided to tens of millions of homes.
Key Advantages of a Smart Metering System
The NES System offers advanced metering that’s more capable, robust, and beneficial than solutions using other technologies. But it offers more than that: advanced load profiling, theft and outage detection, dynamic pricing, prepaid metering, and more. For a list of solutions built on the NES System, visit Smart Grid Infrastructure Solutions.
Built to Grow — into the HAN, the Enterprise, and Beyond
Residential demand response, incentive pricing, prepay service, alternative energy buy-back plans, and consumer-to-consumer energy commerce: all of these services will be future options for utilities. However, meshed RF grid solutions rely on proprietary communications technology that limits a utility’s choices once the solutions are deployed.
The NES System imposes no such limits. To ensure maximum flexibility for future upgrades and expansion, the system is based on open, international networking standards at every level — enterprise system software, WAN, and meter.
- IP-based WANs easily integrate with the NES System regardless of type, from WiMAX to GPRS modem to BPL.
- The NES System ensures that a utility can provide HAN and, through the utility enterprise, use existing and emerging hardware and software standards such as ZigBee.
- The SOA system software can be used by any IT services company for fast enterprise application development.