The aim of the new project is to harness Internet of Things technology in order to improve service reliability and also to reduce costs. Rocky Mountain Power, which is part of PacifiCorp, operates throughout the U.S. states of Utah, Wyoming and Idaho.
With the new partnership, Itron will deploy its OpenWay Riva IoT advanced metering infrastructure solution in Idaho. The company will also help to integrate the utility’s existing Itron automated meter reading solution in Utah into the OpenWay Riva network. This step is intended to prolong the useful life of the utility’s existing asset investments while upgrading to an advanced metering infrastructure solution.
Specifically, the new technology will allow Rocky Mountain Power to realize significant advantages. These include improved outage detection, better meter-to-transformer mapping and more reliable meter temperature monitoring.
Advanced metering infrastructure refers to a two-way communication system of smart devices. These bridge the utility and customer sides of the meter. Advanced metering infrastructure typically consists of home area networks, in-home displays, energy management systems, smart meters, communications networks, and data management systems – each helping to form the “smart grid.”
The electric utility industry’s is making good use of the Internet of Things, such as leveraging available technology to optimize and control assets and to increase safety. Such technology is also being applied to manage control of the grid.
In related news, TFA Labs has been given finance from the U.S. Department of Energy. This will enable a project that will combine Meadow and TFA Labs' Signed at Source hardware to help modernize and secure the U.S. electrical grid.
This requires the use of an Internet of Things solution intended to provide a robust blockchain-backed security platform that make use of a public blockchain ledger to provide an immutable, tamper proof system.
Over the past five years a wide range of business have embrace the Internet of Things, especially those driving innovation within the energy sector.
