Automated Meter Readers

Accelerating the Digital Transformation of Utilities Businesses and Smart Cities

Accurate real-time meter readings. Tamper and emergency alerts. Greener and more cost-effective energy consumption. Sub-metering for multi occupancy sites.

3 Main Competitive Differentiators

Customer experience (CX), reduced carbon footprint and cost efficiency are the 3 main competitive differentiators in the Utilities industry today. They are also 3 of the top goals for smart city projects, in which utilities play a huge role. Today’s customers from the schoolchildren and Millennials to the older generation, are using technology and automation in every area of their lives at school, at home and at work. This means they are getting used to services being delivered to them faster, more efficiently and more cost effectively than ever before.

A Greener Solution

A growing number of people are also concerned with the way in which our modern lives impact the environment. The government regulations surrounding environmental issues are therefore also becoming stricter and requiring utilities companies, smart cities and other businesses to ensure that their business strategy is sustainable, environmentally friendly and reduces their carbon footprint.

Better, Faster, Cheaper

In all industries customer experience is about delivering better services, faster and cheaper and with more transparency than your competitors. A strong customer focus and an excellent reputation management strategy is essential because, these days, if customers are unhappy, they will take to social media and publicise the bad experience they have had with a brand, which can do significant reputational damage.

Business Intelligence & Analytics

So utilities companies are in a race to accelerate their digital transformation. Higher levels of automation afford the ability to gather deep business insights by collecting customer data and using predictive analytics to streamline their operations, improve their customer service and make better business decisions. For cities embarking on a digital transformation to become smarter, the most cost-effective way is often to tackle one service at a time and allow the city to become smarter through organic growth depending on which services are most in demand in by the types of people living there. Automated meter reading for water, gas and electricity services is a great place to start and has huge benefits for utilities and retail providers and their customers, as well as domestic and commercial landlords and tenants.

Manual Meter Readings

The disadvantages of manual meter readings are margin for human error and an incorrect reading which leads to billing problems and unhappy business and domestic customers. The utilities company also can’t collect load profile data via this method, which is essential data for streamlining processes, business growth and providing better services.

Orion Data Network Automated Meter Reading Solutions

NFC Group provides an end to end Smart Meter solution connected to our privately-owned Orion Data Network.

These AMR solutions deliver a wide range of significant benefits to both the provider and the customer. Orion deliver real-time readings and other pre-defined data, tailored to the exact needs of each provider and customer, directly to the provider, landlord or other chosen central location.

Tamper, level and other sensors enable emergency and outage alerts to be sent immediately to the provider’s and landlord’s mobile, laptop or pager.

The units allow both parties to see exactly how much energy is being consumed over any given time period, instead of relying on estimates.

This means the most economical usage pattern can be determined and implemented and billing can be more flexible. Overall they reduce the cost of labour and eliminate human error and provide a more cost-effective, greener and reliable energy solution.

Sub-Metering for Multi Occupancy

Our Orion Automated Meter Readers play an important role in sub-metering apartment blocks, malls and shopping centres and other multi-occupancy and tenancy sites, allowing landlords to bill business owners and residents individually and fairly, according to actual consumption.

Reduced Opex and Faster ROI

Orion AMRs provide up to 75% better operational and cost efficiencies than other comparable solutions in the market place, which also makes them a more viable environmentally friendly solution. It requires a modest initial investment to enable impressive long-term cost gains with a much faster time to ROI.