The utilities offer smart grid services in the Colorado, Kansas and Washington
Honeywell said it will provide three power providers in the U.S. with managed smart grid services as a way to more simply manage very technical smart grid networks, and enable improved electricity service and reliability.
The Honeywell subscription services offer an alternative for smaller utilities that choose not to own and manage their own advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) software.
Honeywell said that the three managed services subscribers that will use Honeywell-managed and maintained smart grid software are municipal utilities in the cities of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and St. John, in Kansas, as well as Yakama Power in Toppenish, Washington.
The firm said that these three utilities will realize reduced operating expenses and the ability to better serve customers through improved billing accuracy and faster outage recovery.
“Utilities have to provide power in a consistent and reliable way, but grid modernization makes this complex because it involves choosing the right smart grid framework and ensuring its ongoing management,” said Nitin Kulkarni, president of Smart Energy, Honeywell Home and Building Technologies. “This can be particularly challenging for smaller communities and their IT resources. Honeywell’s expertise and connected services reduce risk and provide added resources to level the playing field for all utilities so they can focus on their core business.”
Through the Honeywell managed services subscriptions, the three utilities will receive portal access and analytics for Honeywell’s EnergyAxis connected electricity meters, which will provide data on customer energy consumption to enable more accurate billing, and also help detect meter tampering and outages.
“As a smaller utility, we have many of the same fundamental objectives as any large power provider, but the added obstacle of operating with often limited resources – especially when it comes to IT,” said Jeff Williamson, utility director for the City of St. John. “Honeywell’s managed smart grid services help us more easily cover off on important network management tasks so we can focus on our ultimate objective of providing our customers with affordable and reliable power.”
The Glenwood Springs Electric System’s selection of Honeywell managed smart grid services follows a successful pilot project that tested the services. For the full project, the utility will use the services to streamline billing and better monitor and manage grid assets to serve the city’s more than 9,900 residents. The services will integrate with the utility’s existing meter data management (MDM) system, which is also from Honeywell.
Meanwhile, Yakama Power expects to benefit from Honeywell-managed smart grid services outage and restoration notifications. In addition to power metering for residential and agricultural customers, Yakama Power serves more than 30,000 members of the Yakama Nation.
Honeywell provides complete smart grid and energy management solutions for utilities, commercial and industrial customers, and consumers.