NES Benefits
Benefits for every aspect of your utility’s operation.
The Networked Energy Services system is a highly advanced, future-proof system that benefits every aspect of your utility’s operation—from metering and customer services to distribution operations and value-added business. We offer an unparalleled return on investment with a payback period for most utilities ranging from two and five years.
Here are some of the ways the NES system can help you reduce costs, improve operations, and generate new sources of income.
Direct Benefits
Metering
The NES system:
- enables completely automated scheduled reads of electric, gas, water and heat meters
- allows real-time, on-demand reads
- eliminates most meter-reading costs for both scheduled and unscheduled reads, due to wage, insurance, equipment, office space, and vehicular cost savings
Customer Service
The NES system:
- reduces billing errors, complaints, and inquiries, as well as call center staff and related costs
- extends the use of flexible tariffs—previously available only to commercial accounts—to residential customers, allowing new tariff structures to be remotely downloaded into meters, such as:
- time-of-use pricing
- critical peak pricing
- real-time pricing
- prepayment without card
- offers remote connect and disconnect features—useful in high-turnover environments such as apartments—that:
- eliminate costs associated with manually managing service connections
- increase customer satisfaction through improved response times
Distribution Operation
The NES system's detailed per-meter supply quality statistics, broad load-profiling capabilities, and extensive provisions for theft detection enable:
- load-balancing of meters and transformers
- improved energy forecasting and conservation
- blackout and brownout prevention
- comprehensive revenue protection
The system also:
- rapidly detects outages
- verifies service restoration while field crews are still in the area
Operating
The NES system:
- eliminates re-bills caused by incorrect reads or data entry errors
- eliminates the need for estimated bills
- improves cash flow by reducing read-to-bill turnaround and uncollectibles
- reduces unnecessary services calls and field investigations through remote monitoring
Regulatory
The NES system offers:
- power quality reporting for any subset of meters or service areas
- historical as well as on-demand outage and connection reporting for accurate calculation of service quality
- remotely configurable meter-reading capabilities by time, period, or service area to comply with changing regulations
Value-Added Benefits
Since the NES system is built on open, internationally recognized standards using existing infrastructures, your utility can add new devices over time—anywhere within the electricity network—using the same communication infrastructure already installed for electricity metering.
Products such as thermostats, boilers, appliances, air handlers, lights, and load control modules based on our LonWorks technology —the backbone of the NES system—are available from thousands of manufacturers worldwide.
By adding communications and control over these devices, utilities can offer end users or partners benefits and services including:
- remote monitoring and control of in-premise devices such as thermostats and appliances
- predictive warranty services
- consumer use reports
