AMR from CompWell
What is AMR
Automatic meter reading, or AMR, is the technology of automatically collecting consumption, diagnostic, and status data from water and energy metering devices and transferring that data to a central database, CS, for billing, troubleshooting, and analyzing. This technology mainly saves utility providers and facility administrators the expense of periodic trips to each physical location to read a meter. Another advantage is that billing can be based on near real-time consumption rather than on estimates based on past or predicted consumption. This timely information coupled with analysis can help both utility providers and customers better control the use and production of electric and heating energy or water consumption.
AMR from CompWell
Since 2004 CompWell has installed over 60,000 meters remotely read meters (electricity, water, heat, temperature and humidity) in over 16,000 apartments.
Our meters are read every 15 minutes (the interval can be changed online to between 1 and 60 minutes) by the Data Collection Unit (IE) installed in a central technical area/room of a building (center for distribution of electricity, heat, water and Internet).
We offer clamp-on water and heat meters. No cutting of pipes and installation of valves is required. Where ever possible we install interface modules capable of handling more than one meter thus reducing the cost of the system.
In new buildings, the meters are connected to the IE by cable (data bus) using high speed RS485 or MBUS technology, while in existing buildings, the meters communicate with the IE on 868 MHz or 169 MHz radio using Wireless MBUS protocol.
The IE has access to temperature values from each apartment and continuously calculates an average temperature of the whole building. That temperature (converted to a 1-9V signal) is fed to the building’s HVAC system to improves its accuracy which leads to 10 to 15% savings on the heating costs.
The IE is connected through the Internet to a data server (CS) based on Windows, .NET and Microsoft SQL Server and installed in either CompWell datacenter, building owner’s datacenter or in the “cloud”.
The CS software:
- Reads meters (via IE)
- Performs various tests to ensure the quality (wrong or suspect values are marked for further analysis)
- Calculates consumption
- Generates periodical report which are:
- Presented in real-time on web pages
- Presented daily on Apartment Display Units in kWh, m³, ⁰C currency amount for the previous day, current month and previous month
- Transferred to other systems for analysis and invoicing in by the building owner defined format