Tennessee's Humboldt Utilities to deploy Elster AMI

RALEIGH, N.C., May 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Elster today announced that Humboldt Utilities has selected the Elster EnergyAxis AMI and grid performance management solution. Humboldt Utilities is a municipally owned utility servicing Humboldt, Tennessee, and the surrounding area with electric, gas, water and wastewater services.

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Humboldt is preparing to implement a new "pay-as-you-go" system, which allows customers to pay for utilities as they use them. This system will collect hourly data from the nearly 13,000 electric, gas and water meters using Elster's EnergyAxis solution and calculate the customer's daily usage. This daily usage will help determine the dollar amount a customer owes, and then deducts that amount from the customer's pre-paid account.

Humboldt is also looking at offering to its approximately 4400 customers the new time of use (TOU) rates recently implemented by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). EnergyAxis retrieves the actual TOU data from the meter, rather than calculating it. EnergyAxis meters collect and store the customer's energy consumption based on the customer's TOU rate, and also can collect interval data in parallel.

"Over a dozen TVA utilities are successfully using EnergyAxis to support TOU data collection," said Bruce Russell, Director, Smart Grid Solutions, Elster Solutions. "We're also pleased to be able to help these utilities improve operational efficiency and reliability, as well as enhancing customer service with our EnergyAxis grid performance solution."

"We were looking for an AMI system that had experience in remotely reading electric, gas, and water meters within one company. After a thorough evaluation, we selected Elster and EnergyAxis," said Alex Smith, General Manager, Humboldt Utilities. "Elster is known for its ability to solve problems for their customers, and the EnergyAxis solution is recognized throughout the TVA utility community as a solid technical solution that works well and has a proven track record."

The EnergyAxis System enables meter data collection, analysis, reporting, and network management from electricity, water and gas meters using a single head-end software system. This simplifies system management, minimizes the IT resources needed to stand-up and manage the system, and reduces the total cost of ownership. Elster has over 110 active EnergyAxis deployments worldwide, including 65 in the US.

About Elster
Elster delivers complete Smart Grid and Energy Management Solutions that drive energy efficiency, operational improvements and cost savings for utilities, commercial and industrial customers and consumers. Elster is dedicated to driving interoperability and open standards and strategically collaborates with customers and partners.

Its end-to-end electricity, water and gas offerings include advanced meters/sensors, secure communications, and data collection, management and analytics. Elster is dedicated to customer success in more than 130 countries through Elster's professional integration services, technical support and training.

For more information about Elster, please visit www.Elster.com and follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/EnergyAxis.

SOURCE Elster