The NES System Components
Our components — smart meters, data concentrators, and system software — work together to meet the needs of the smart metering and AMI markets from the perspective of the grid, not just the meter.
Smart Meters
NES smart meters meet the future market and regulatory needs of a utility by incorporating a rich set of features including prepay, multi-tariff abilities, remote updates, remote connect and reconnect, tamper and outage detection, hardware extensibility, direct relay control, software-settable service levels, and load factor monitoring. Meters can be updated with new pricing, quality of service, energy management, and monitoring and control services even after they’ve been fully deployed. Key benefits include*:
- Integrated disconnect
- Single-board design for worldwide use
- ANSI and IEC versions
- IP versions embed data concentrator features into a single concentrator/meter housing
- Over 100 event and data table entries to accommodate future service needs
- Integrated communications using lower-power distribution carrier lines
Data Concentrators
These intelligent infrastructure devices let a utility leverage its NES System solution beyond AMI or smart metering. The concentrators provide a power line mesh to ensure 100% meter communications, isolate and pinpoint outage and other service issues, and minimize wide-area communications costs. They communicate with System Software located at a utility’s service centers over any IP-based backhaul. Key benefits include:
- Manage up to 1,024 NES smart meters
- Choice of serial or Ethernet connection to the IP-based WAN
- Worldwide certification
- 20-year lifespan
- Remotely upgradable firmware
System Software
The NES System is one of the only software-driven smart metering solutions on the market. Our NES System Software is a key component, working with the smart meters and data concentrators to distribute grid intelligence throughout the metering infrastructure.
The software drives the features and behavior of an NES-based metering infrastructure. For example, it can control which group of meters report use at certain times and intervals; define what constitutes an outage or theft; and define what level of power quality is delivered and to whom.
Our Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) software provides the intelligence and visibility needed to lower the lifecycle cost of the overall metering infrastructure. It’s fault-tolerant, highly scalable, and built on IT standards for faster, easier, and less error-prone integration, extension, and scaling.
NES Software Tools
NES Element Manager
This Web-based network manager for the NES System speeds system installation and provides summary and detailed views of system health and status. The easy-to-use interface lets system administrators configure and manage a single meter or millions of meters, making it ideal for both pilot installations and full-scale system deployments.
NES Diagnostic Tool
This flexible remote access service tool lets support personnel diagnose NES system components using information collected by NES System Software. Custom reporting features are included. The tool, which is built on top of NES System Software, provides a thin user interface to issue commands and receive responses from a group of meters and data concentrators.
NES Provisioning Tool
This advanced configuration tool is used during both manufacturing and post-deployment. The tool generates a provisioning program containing configuration data for NES meters and data concentrators, which is then used to manufacture the components. The tool can also be used onsite to retrieve data or reconfigure a meter or data concentrator.
*Note: Meter benefits vary with model. Consult the NES Smart Meter model for specific benefits affiliated with each model.