Navasota Valley Electric Cooperative (NVEC) has chosen to install the Sensus FlexNet utility communications network in an effort to increase reliability and provide usage information for its approximate 13,000 member, nine-county service territory in central Texas.
NVEC will embark on a three-month pilot program this fall with residential iCon A electric meters and two base stations and eventually replace all of its more than 18,000 meters with Sensus technology.
The Sensus FlexNet utility network, which is based on open standards, will serve as a foundation for future outage management capabilities with NVEC’s Milsoft system and will seamlessly integrate with the cooperative’s existing Daffron customer information system. NVEC is confident that the Sensus AMI technology will be an excellent match for its rural environment that stretches more than 5,000 miles.
“We chose to implement the Sensus FlexNet system at the recommendation of the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC),” said NVEC’s Kayla Sanders of Member Services. “Their recommendation, along with that of comparable cooperatives in the area, assured us that the licensed spectrum and point-to-multipoint network would be ideal for reaching our rural members.”
Sanders noted that its current power line carrier (PLC) system no longer represented the best option for its members and that the Sensus technology offered reliability along with system versatility
