Motorola Walks through Walls with LonWorks Networks

Motorola has achieved a breakthrough for utility customers with its PowerCom technology. The system offers a way for homeowners to monitor energy usage and to buy power in advance. Motorola realized the importance of being able to install the system without the expense and disruption of drilling through the walls of utility customers’ homes.

For this capability, Motorola turned to Echelon’s PLT-22 Power Line Transceiver. The PLT-22 offers unprecedented performance with its dual frequency-narrowband technology and advanced digital processing. By embedding Echelon’s PLT-22 technology into the PowerCom meter, Motorola has been able to design meters and in-home consoles that are truly plug-and-play. These products can communicate over the customer’s existing home electrical wiring without having to install phase couplers or any other conditioning circuitry. Going with Echelon's PLT-22 technology has proven to be the most reliable and cost-effective solution, both for Motorola as well as the consumer. Motorola says Echelon’s technology was the best for the job because it guaranteed connectivity under conditions that might overwhelm other technologies.

"You never know how a consumer’s home is wired," says Rick O’Connell,Manager,Advanced Technologies for Utility Solutions at Motorola. "Sometimes you may have more types of interference than expected.We picked the PLT-22 because we believed that Echelon had the most robust power line carrier on the market and would allow us to operate in a little tougher environment than the existing power line technology might." Motorola also found it could trust Echelon’s technology to transfer data reliably. "Because customers are putting credit for electricity into the meter and taking data out of the meter,we had to be absolutely sure there was data integrity," stresses O’Connell.

The switch to Echelon technology has paid off. More than 13,000 customers of Salt River Project, an electric utility in Arizona, have signed up for the PowerCom technology, a dramatic increase from the 1,500 enrolled in the previous system that used an alternative technology. Customers get all the benefits of prepayment technology without the disturbance of the old system. It couldn’t be easier.

Motorola says Echelon’s LonWorks technology has been invaluable for PowerCom. " Echelon’s core technology enabled the quality, reliability and success of PowerCom," says O’Connell. "In fact,Salt River Project has the largest base of prepaid metering in the nation."

Motorola lists a number of customers throughout North America.Customers of these utilities will see the benefits of pre-paid utility metering and non-intrusive technology. In Louisville, Kentucky, for example, utility officials praise the program. Susan Sanchez, Project Manager for the "Pay as You Go" program at Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) in Louisville, Kentucky, finds strong benefits for the utility. "With deregulation on the horizon, we feel this is a way to have a two-way communication with our customers that we don’t have through our regular billing process."

In addition to showing real-time and historical power use, the display unit warns customers when they are running low, so they can recharge their meters. The power meter and the display unit contain Echelon’s PLT-22 Power Line Transceiver and communicate over the customer’s existing home wiring. The PLT-22 is extremely robust and reliable. It is the first step in adding an intelligent network of smart devices into the home.

New Service, New Opportunity

According to Mike Hummel, Manager of Revenue Cycle Services at SRP, "Prepay provides another choice. There are some customers who get paid weekly, daily ,or have difficulty managing their bills. Prepaid metering takes away the surprises. It takes away bills. It puts homeowners in control of energy management."

Key Benefits

• Enables acceptance of prepay systems
• Provides reliable,robust communication
• Gives immediate power usage feed back
• Simplifies utility operations
• Protects homes from damage

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