Case study

AVEC conquers the elements with AMR

At a glance:

• Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (AVEC) delivers power to isolated communities.
• The harsh weather conditions make repairing outages and reading meters a costly and laborious process.
• AMR technology means AVEC can manage much of this work remotely.

The challenge:

For electric power company Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (AVEC) reading and servicing customer’s electricity meters is far from straightforward.

In the 52 remote communities it supports in the Alaskan wilderness, the meters must be hardy enough to withstand temperatures that range from the scorching 90s in the summer to minus 40 in the winter when snow often completely buries properties.

Access is also an issue with the vast majority of the communities reachable only by air. Technicians entering the region often take their own provisions and stay in emergency lodgings attached to power plants.

The solution:

In conditions such as these, Elster Electricity’s automated meter reading (AMR) technology comes into its own. AVEC has started to roll-out AMR throughout its territories – an initiative that, according to CEO, Meera Kohler, has brought a number of real business benefits.

With AMR units installed at its power generating facilities and along its distribution lines, AVEC is able to use the data that feeds back to its headquarters in Anchorage to remotely diagnose where and why outages and other technical hitches are taking place.

“This means, if we have to fly a technician in, he’ll be properly-equipped and know what has to be done when he gets there,” says Kohler.

Load balancing can also be managed remotely to reduce the chance of outages in the first place.

The challenging climate also makes getting to a meter to read or disconnect it an expensive operation, traditionally costing AVEC US$ 1 per read. This cost is dramatically reduced with AMR.

“We can now disconnect power any time, eliminate the need for contract collectors, speed up the collection cycle and operate more like a normal utility,” says Kohler.