South Carolina-based Orangeburg Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has selected the MeterSense meter data management (MDM) and CustomerConnect customer engagement solutions from Harris Utilities SmartWorks.
Once fully implemented across all 63,000 Orangeburg DPU meters, MeterSense will help the utility promote service reliability by identifying peak load times and initiating outage responses; eliminate losses across its electricity, gas and water networks; automate meter reads, disconnects and service orders; and implement a future pre-paid solution, according to Harris.
“We see the MDM as being the brains of our whole implementation,” says John Bagwell, director of the DPU’s Electric Division. “We felt it was important to have MeterSense in place before we begin collecting data from our new advanced meters so that we can take advantage of smart grid data the moment it starts coming in.”
In addition, Orangeburg DPU plans to use CustomerConnect to enhance interaction with its customers.
“CustomerConnect gives our customers instant access to their energy usage data and basic analytics calculations,” explains Bagwell. “That was important for us. We expect to use the solution to reach out to customers in new ways, to educate them about ways to control their consumption costs and to get them involved in new conservation programs.”
