Internet energy management
July 04th 2007

Energy data collection from multiple sites has mostly been based on telephone technology. Initially PSTN lines were used but these have increasingly been replaced with GSM connections. These systems still serve their purpose but most large sites now have internet connectivity, which can replace telephone connections for energy data collection. This not only offers much improved reliability and eliminates all telecommunications charges; it also permits energy data to be delivered in real time, enabling energy demand to be managed in real time across the enterprise.

When the data collection server is outside a customer’s premises it is often impossible to establish an incoming connection to devices deployed behind a firewall providing Network Address Translation or a proxy server. It is not desirable for additional ports to be opened on the firewall and the devices cannot be provided with a public IP address.

To circumvent these difficulties Coherent Research manufactures a range of Internet appliances for the collection of metering data. These Internet Data Collectors (IDCs) connect to an Ethernet network and establish a secure internet or intranet connection to Coherent’s server software. They only use standard HTTPS outgoing traffic, which is normally permitted since it is used for web browsing of secure sites.

Coherent Research provides a complete hardware and software solution for internet based aM&T. The Coherent IDCs read all types of electricity, gas, water, heat and steam meters through Ethernet connections. Coherent also provides a browser based suite of aM&T software providing accurate time series data for all meters and on-line access to real time metering data. All types of meter can be connected to the IDCs, which support multidrop connection to meters through their native protocols, modbus connections, low power radio connections and pulse inputs. Coherent Research also offers a range of modbus solutions for radio and pulse connections, optical meter reading and safety isolation of gas meters.

The Coherent Energy Management Solution provides:

• Meter readings for all fiscal meters that can be sent to suppliers each month, eliminating estimated bills.

• Validation of electricity profile for tariff negotiation.

• Online access to any real time metering data for engineering and maintenance.

• Secure storage of all fiscal and secondary metering data on a unified database.

• Automatically generated energy usage, carbon usage, invoice validation and building performance reports that can be emailed to all interested parties in PDF or HTML formats.

• Alarm and exception reports if usage deviates from preset limits or if any equipment malfunctions.

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