E.ON Sees Customer Calls and Complaints Drop by 56% with Echelon Smart Metering System
We selected the NES System because its open, bidirectional, and extensible infrastructure offered us a comprehensive range of utility applications, ones that we felt could benefit many aspects of our company’s operation, such as metering, customer services, distribution operations, and value-added services. We’ve only tapped a portion of the NES System’s features. As our needs grow, we’ll take advantage of more advanced ones. And that’s exactly why we chose the NES System: to deliver the initial applications and services we needed, and to provide the platform for desired future value-added services.
— Thomas Pehrsson, Roll-Out Manager and CTO, E.ON Sverige AMR project
Participants
- End-user: E.ON Sverige, Sweden’s largest utility with one million customers, €2.5B annual revenue
- Integrator: Elektrosandberg, meter operator
Challenge
- Meet mandated monthly meter readings and meter data availability
- Create simple, accurate customer invoices
- Create a more efficient process for handling supplier changes and relocations
- Gain the ability to meet changing needs and add new features for customer service, grid management, other applications
Solution
The Echelon NES Smart Metering System:
- Highest percentage of successful periodic meter readings, with an average success rate above 99.5%
- Comprehensive energy services:
- Multi-tiered billing
- Time-of-use and real-time pricing
- Prepaid metering
- Remote electrical disconnect and reconnect
- Distribution system asset optimization
- Outage detection and restoration reporting
- Blackout and brownout elimination
- Real-time direct load control
- Power quality measurement
- Extensive tamper detection
Benefits
- Improved customer service; Accurate and timely meter readings
- 56% reduction in meter- and invoice-related customer service calls
- 50% drop in meter complaints
- Increased customer loyalty as indicated through customer satisfaction survey
- More time for service representatives to focus on call-center efficiency
- Cost/benefit return as anticipated, with system value increasing each year
- Excellent system operation and performance; Reduced system losses
Next Steps
- Integrate NES System outage information into the SCADA system
- Leverage NES System power quality data in power system operations
- Expand the smart grid to offer additional customer-related services
- Incorporate more retail-oriented products and services