• NES: The Power Behind Smart Metering
• NES Benefits
• The NES System Components
• NES vs. Traditional AMR
• NES VAR Program
• Request More Information

The NES System Architecture

The NES system consists of:

• a set of intelligent, communicating digital electricity meters that provides advanced energy consumption and power quality data
• powerful IP-connected data concentrators that automatically manage the meters and their data
• system software that easily integrates with existing and new utility applications and middleware

A True Smart Metering Network

The NES system is designed to let your utility use a variety of communications media within your system to minimize cost and complexity, and maximize reliability and security.

At the core of this flexibility are data concentrators, which provide the connectivity infrastructure between meters at customer sites and the NES System Software at the utility's central office.

Data concentrators connect to the secondary side of a distribution transformer and securely communicate with and supervise meters attached to the secondary side of a given transformer. They can be installed adjacent to or collocated with one of the meters at a customer site or collocated with the transformer itself, which may be on utility poles, in underground substations, or in above-ground enclosures.

Data concentrators communicate with meters over the low-voltage power line network. Communication between data concentrators and the NES System Software (which usually resides in the utility’s data center) occurs over any IP-enabled wide area network (WAN). Because our flexible data concentrators can use any convenient WAN technology—such as GPRS, CDMA, GSM, PSTN, and broadband—utilities can take advantage of today's diverse range of wide area communication possibilities, as well as new options that may be offered in the future.

The purposefully designed hybrid RF/PLC/IP architecture of the NES system cost-effectively serves both the IEC and ANSI markets for a variety of geographic terrains—from densely populated urban and suburban areas to thinly populated, distant rural locations—while retaining all of its functionality.

Advanced Metering

Meters are a utility’s most important asset: They must provide uncompromising quality, accuracy, and reliability. Our internationally certified NES meters offer the industry’s best value for a digital communicating meter, turning each metering point into a wealth of readily available information that can be used not only to generate bills—as in a traditional AMR system—but also to monitor network health, reduce or eliminate on-site visits, improve customer service, and optimize the distribution network.

Since NES provides a complete, always-on, two-way network, each meter is remotely accessible at any time for both data reading and, with proper authorization, remote configuration and control. And because our meters have no serviceable parts, you may never need to send personnel to the field again.

Our NES meters offer a number of features and benefits, including:

• Support for multiple tariffs, which automatically adapt for holiday, weekend, and seasonal changes
• Integrated, automatic gas and water meter reading, which expands the value of the network beyond electricity
• Power quality information—such as power outages, sags, swells, and frequency measurements—which enables predictive repairs and optimizations
• Extensive load-profiling capabilities to understand customer consumption
• Real-time scheduled or remote load control to prevent brownouts or blackouts
• Remote disconnect of main load, for managing vacant or high-turnover premises (such as vacation homes or apartments) without on-site visits
• Superior tamper and fraud detection, which increase compliance and revenue
• Full remote configuration capabilities, which eliminate the need to visit meters to change tariff schedule, display, or load control
• Standard digital meter installation—no special skills or tools required