Leland Keller E SOURCE Research Services Metering America April , Las Vegas, NV AMR and Other Compelling BPL Utility Applications a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies

Basic terms of BPL BPL can support AMR BPL pilots illustrating AMR and other utility applications What applications make sense Presentation Overview

Defining the terms  Access BPL  Backhaul  Collector  Repeater  “BPL-ready”

BPL Supports Utility Applications  Northeast Utilities  City of Manassas  Duke Energy  Progress Energy  Chelan County PUD

BPL for Residential Fixed Network AMR at Duke Energy  500 home trial  “Plug & play” fixed network receiver uses BPL as backhaul  Main.net BPL technology

BPL for IP Commercial Demand Meters at Duke Energy Modem power cord wired directly into 240V. Ethernet from meter routed to Main.Net modem

Duke Energy BPL Utility Applications “To leverage the infrastructure with fixed network AMR looks to be a viable thing to do. It’s not justified on meter reading, but by other operational benefits: rereads, move-in/move-out and outage monitoring”

Duke Energy Capacitor Bank Remote Control Serial to Ethernet Converter Serial Port

What makes BPL viable for meter communications  BPL business model  Types of metering  Physical location  Coverage from public networks

BPL for Mesh Network AMR at Progress Energy  Amperion Griffin injector  WiFi panel antenna  420 homes passed in 3 counties  Market trial ended Q4 2004

BPL for Mesh Network AMR at Progress Energy  Elster REX collector meter  Serial to Ethernet converter  Ethernet to WiFi  Parallel dual socket meter cabinet  REX wireless mesh network

BPL for Mesh Network AMR at Progress Energy Progress engineers use the “vertle” for underground systems. “You don’t have hot spots, you have hot zones or neighborhoods”-Matt Oja, Progress Energy

Progress Energy BPL Applications  AMR  Outage detection  RTU monitoring and control  WiFi access for field personnel

Why is meter access speed and two- way communication important? “BPL doesn’t justify AMR, it’s just potentially a faster, hopefully more cost- effective way to get data back from the meters than the existing dial-up or drive- by systems that exist today. If you can get it back in a matter of seconds or a few minutes, does that matter? Why does it matter?” -Matt Oja, Progress Energy

Other BPL Utility Applications  Underground fault detection  Equipment failure prediction  Distribution asset management  Distribution system optimization  Demand response / load control  Remote control for RTUs, capacitor banks, substations  Monitoring for security

Hurdles for BPL  Still cost-prohibitive for rural  Deployment costs vary for each utility  Equipment durability and reliability  Interference concerns  Regulatory issues

Leland Keller E SOURCE Research Services Questions ??