• Remote Device Management
• Data Center Management
• Medical/Healthcare
• Retail/POS
• Hazardous Environments
• Building Automation & Security
• Traffic Management
• Utilities
  • Overview
  • Product Applications
  • News
• Industrial Automation
• Digital Signage
• Government

Home > Applications > Utilities > Product Applications >

Commercial and Industrial (C&I) metering programs are implemented by many electric utility companies to combat the congestion experienced by power plants when they are generating power at peak capacity. Customers who enroll in these curtailment programs are incentivized to voluntarily cut back on usage during peak periods. If they choose not to curtail usage, their billing rates increase for that period. For this reason, C&I billing is complicated and requires timely and precise meter readings at all times.

A global leader in enterprise energy management systems needed an easy solution to offer its power utility customers who need to collect data from remote modem-enabled C&I meters. It is not unusual for a company to have sixteen or more modems dialing-in to remote electricity meters, but adding modems to an existing system can be challenging, especially if no free I/O slots exist. The energy management company liked the idea of an out-of-the-box (external) solution, since opening a server and adding serial cards was not feasible for every customer.

Digi offered this company two options, both of which utilize Plug and Play Universal Serial Bus (USB) technology and are designed for mission-critical enterprise applications. Edgeport/8 connects to a server via the USB port and provides eight RS-232 serial ports to connect external modems. This external alternative to a serial card is easy to install and set up in minutes – without opening the server, reconfiguring and rebooting. For customers who do not already have RS-232 serial-connected modems on hand, Digi recommended Rapidport/4. This multi-modem device also connects to the server via the USB port and provides four 56K v.90 modems. Each unit has a built-in USB hub, so as connectivity needs grow additional Rapidport/4 units can be daisy-chained to add more modems.

This management company now has an easy and cost-effective modem connectivity solution to offer its customers. The scalability of Edgeport/8 and Rapidport/4 also ensures that future expansion is not a problem.

Now you can...

Utilize USB connectivity to easily add modems to an existing automatic meter reading system.

Solution:

• Edgeport®/8
• Rapidport/4®