The Ecologic MDMS Plays Pivotal Role in a Major Milestone in Oncor's AMS Deployment

Oncor leads the industry in using MDMS to provision in-home displays with CIM protocols

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. - March 23, 2010: Ecologic Analytics, a leading provider of meter data management systems (MDMS) for the Smart Grid, announced today that the Ecologic MDMS is a critical contributor in the data supplied to the Smart Meter Texas portal for Oncor. As the digital nerve center for Oncor's Advanced Metering System (AMS), the Ecologic MDMS is responsible for enabling and tracking many on-demand functions for the AMS meters and associated Home Area Network (HAN) devices within the Oncor service territory and supplying this data to the portal.

"Contributing to the initial go-live of the Smart Meter Texas portal is a significant accomplishment for us," said Mark Carpenter, vice president and chief technology officer for Oncor. "EA's leading edge application of the CIM messaging standards is a critical component of the high-volume, two-way communication capability between retail electric providers and consumers."

With the portal launch, consumers can register with the Smart Meter Texas portal to view daily energy usage, and participating competitive retailers, also known as Retail Electric Providers (REPs), can retrieve billing determinants and control in-home display (IHD) devices through the portal.

As Smart Meter installations and adoption of HAN devices increase within the Oncor service territory, the REPs will use the Smart Meter Texas portal to perform more services in near real time for consumers, including:

Device activation and deactivation
Meter connect or disconnect services
On-demand meter reads
Load control functions
Pricing signals

When requests are initiated from the Smart Meter Texas portal, the Ecologic MDMS processes them and returns responses in near real time. Service-oriented architecture between systems and common- information-model (CIM) messaging are a part of the process that enables the Ecologic MDMS to validate metering information, broker the command-and-control messages and provision in-home display devices for more than 700,000 AMS meters. Oncor intends to complete a deployment of more than 3-million smart meters by 2012.

"As with so many of our customers, we are fortunate to work with Oncor, a truly innovative utility," said David Hubbard, chief technology officer for Ecologic Analytics. "The AMS and MDMS deployment is yet another use case for the MDMS brought to life. Together we’re breaking new ground as we develop best practices to control in-home energy displays with standards-based messaging."

Late last year, Ecologic Analytics announced that the MDMS interfaces and messaging protocols are compliant with CIM/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61968 Part 9 standards and are generally available in the current version of the Ecologic MDMS.

We invite you to see working demonstrations of this solution in conjunction with our partners IBM (booth - #427) and Landis+Gyr (booth - #702).

For more information about the Ecologic MDMS, please or visit us at our DistribuTECH booth - #623.

About Ecologic Analytics

Ecologic Analytics, LLC is a leading provider of meter data management systems (MDMS) for electric, natural gas and water utilities. Ecologic Analytics offers a flexible, configurable and highly scalable enterprise software solution that receives data from any AMI/AMR system and/or manual source, supporting the dynamic operational and business processes needed for Smart Grid initiatives. Founded in 2000, the company is headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Media Contact Information

Matt Schwarz
Director of Marketing Communications
Ecologic Analytics, LLC
Phone: (952) 843-6043
Fax: (612) 395-5535

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