Radius Synergies provides smart metering solutions for managing utilities — in both commercial buildings and residences — across northern India, with a commanding 55% market share. The key to its XENIUS prepaid smart energy solution is its custom-designed and purpose-built smart meter, an energy-measurement and recording device tied to the cloud. That’s helping customers optimize their energy usage and manage their accounts from a mobile-friendly app.
Radius solutions support India’s Smart Meter National Programme (SMNP) which aims to reduce Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses from 21% to 12-15%, potentially saving over 200 billion units of electricity annually. These smart meter projects are delivering 10% to 20% energy savings for consumers through real-time monitoring and improved efficiency.
Optimizing Energy Consumption with Smart Meters
One of the most time, labor, and cost-intensive aspects of providing electricity is simply the need to measure each customer’s consumption on a regular basis (usually monthly). Traditionally, that’s required utilities to send technicians to manually read meters or use estimates based on prior consumption patterns. However, new-breed smart meters are transforming how utilities and their customers measure, monitor, and optimize energy consumption.
Radius Synergies is supporting a massive government-led initiative to deploy hundreds of millions of consumer smart meters. Already, its flagship XENIUS solution is deployed in hundreds of thousands of locations nationwide. This comprehensive system incorporates BIS-certified smart meters and dual-source/dual-registry energy meters, durable field devices, a highly secure backend server platform, user-friendly dashboards, and mobile applications. With XENIUS, customers are more accurately measuring, monitoring, and managing electricity supply from both utility and grid sources in near real time.
An Edge-to-Cloud Connectivity Solution
The connectivity that drives this solution comes from the Digi XBee XR 868 MHz module for the Wi-SUN wireless communication protocol. Using the Wireless Smart Ubiquitous Network (Wi-SUN) standard, the Digi XBee provides a low-power, wide-area network (LPWAN) for mesh networking in large-scale outdoor and urban environments for smart metering as well as smart cities, smart grids, and other industrial IoT applications in real estate, utilities, and EV charging.
The Wi-SUN protocol incorporates modern security features by design, including encryption and authentication, to protect data transmissions and ensure network integrity. Digi XBee can operates in sub-GHz frequency bands — including 865 MHz — allowing long-range communication with reduced interference from other wireless devices, and Wi-SUN standard mesh networking relays messages and further extends the effective coverage area. The module is pin-compatible with all Digi XBee modules, making it easy to deploy the exact module needed for any IoT application.
“We’re very pleased with our choice of the Digi XBee,” said Kaustuv Mohapatra, Vice President of Radius Synergies. “We’ve already deployed 75,000 Digi XBee modules catering to over a million end consumers to provide low-cost, low-power connectivity in our smart meters that use 865 MHz RF connections and a powerful mesh network. We’re receiving mission-critical, real-time data that gives our customers excellent visibility on their energy use and helps them optimize their consumption.”
XENIUS: ‘A Meter in Your Pocket’
Radius Synergy’s XENIUS solution integrates Digi XBee RF modules embedded within a ruggedized smart meter. Depending on the number of housing units in a building or a cluster of meters under a distribution transformer (DT), reads the location’s energy parameters and several such clusters form a simple mesh network (on 865 MHz) to send the data wirelessly through the XENIUS Gateway, where it is aggregated and sent to the Xenia Backend Platform. There, the data gets processed, stored securely, analyzed, and presented to users through web and mobile apps. XENIUS also helps the utility manage its prepaid meters, providing utility delivered power/dual-source (utility as well as back-up Diesel Generator) consumption history, payment records, coupon generation, extensive reporting, and remote-control functionality.
The utilities consumer can access an easy-to-use, mobile-friendly, secure app. “It’s like having a meter in your pocket,” said Mohapatra. “It delivers instant notifications and alerts to keep you informed about important events or issues related to the prepaid meter. You see real-time energy consumption data and your balance information. Customers can also use the app to add credits or funds to replenish their account. That’s appealing to utility companies, too, because the prepaid model reduces payment risks and improves cash flow.”
Radius is one of the first companies in India to launch commercial products that use the Wi-SUN protocol. “We expect our solution to play a central role in the Indian market, where are there are millions of smart metering hardware solutions needed by utilities and EPC firms,” Mohapatra said.