Hunt Technologies' StatSignal, a two-way RF Mesh system, has successfully completed an evaluation process with Alabama Power Company, a subsidiary of Southern Company.
This announcement comes after extensive collaborative development, field trials and total process validation with the Southern Company over the past 18 months.
“The successful completion of this evaluation is another step forward for the StatSignal RF Mesh AMI solution,” said Elden Grace, system marketing manager for the StatSignal System at Hunt. “We have been able to advance our true, dynamic two-way RF Mesh system with the cooperation and resolve of the Southern Company.”
According to Grace, the StatSignal System provides utilities with the functionality needed to meet recent government regulations and energy-efficiency needs of the global energy market, with future-proof system features, such as remote firmware upgrades, to protect a utility’s investment.
“Through a complete evaluation of the StatSignal System, we have managed to learn together about the process change requirements and total benefits associated with deploying a true RF Mesh AMI system,” said Derl Rhoades of Alabama Power Company.
Over the evaluation period, there were four phases of deployment on the isolated Dauphin Island, Alabama. During Phase II of the deployment, the site was hit by Hurricane Katrina and recovered as soon as the power was restored. Some of the key performance measures that were validated include:
- Plug-and-play deployment of AMI endpoints and collectors.
- System scalability to over 1700 residential and commercial electric meter endpoints deployed to a single, low-cost collector, with multiple collector “pocket networks” deployed at the site.
- Network stabilization within 48-hour period of final planned deployment.
- Remote firmware upgrade of system components.
- Grouped or specific endpoint data requests as well as remote reprogramming of endpoints using full two-way on-demand and broadcast feature.
- RF Mesh network analysis that saw up to 35 hops (meter-to-meter) and self-healing properties associated with environmental and physical network changes.
- Continuous billing sub-hourly, hourly, and daily interval data delivered to the database at ongoing performance levels of over 97%.
The StatSignal System was recently featured at Autovation 2006, the annual tradeshow of the Automatic Meter Reading Association (AMRA). It is part of Hunt Technologies’ total AMI solutions portfolio that includes power line carrier and RF-based technologies.
