TNMP Deal With SmartSync

Thursday, 27 May 2010 21:52

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Texas-New Mexico Power (TNMP) will use SmartSynch’s residential SmartMeter for a five year, 231,000 unit deployment in Texas. The $123 million project is the largest residential smart meter deployment in the Unites States to use a public wireless network as the communications backbone. Using IP networks enables utilities to bring smart grid technology to homes across all terrains, from urban areas to remote rural communities, less expensively and also provides the utility with the flexibility to more easily incorporate new technology as it develops in the future.

TNMP’s decision to use SmartSynch units for the deployment as based on the performance of 10,000 meters deployed in a 2009 trial run, which achieved an unprecedented 99.96% average daily read rate in both rural and urban areas. SmartSynch’s solution was also utilized to perform the first remote move-in and move-out service requests in Texas. 

Neal Walker, TNMP vice president of Texas Operations says “The service, reliability, speed and ease of deployment, and performance we experienced during the trial surpassed our expectations, and made this an easy decision. In the last 12 months, we have consistently achieved a near-perfect, uninterrupted read rate regardless of where the SmartSynch SmartMeter units were deployed.  Additionally, public wireless networks offer the greatest bandwidth available – enabling fast, secure and scalable functionality at a price competitive with any available alternative.”

TNMP says the upcoming deployment will enable the utility to monitor and identify usage trends in 15-minute intervals, expand capabilities to support energy management, and provide a Home Area Network (HAN) communications gateway enabling retail energy providers to manage demand response and energy efficiency activities. In addition, SmartSynch’s technology allows TNMP to respond more quickly to power outages while reducing its carbon footprint from less frequent truck use.

SmartSynch’s chief executive officer Stephen Johnston notes, “Today, everything changes in terms of the future of smart grid communications, as TNMP’s decision completely validates using public wireless networks for residential smart metering. Commercial wireless carriers now realize the growth opportunity, and have radically reduced their pricing to make our solutions more cost effective than mesh network solutions.”

TNMP is a subsidiary of PNM Resources, providing electrical transmission and distribution services to 76 cities throughout the state of Texas. In 2007, TNMP’s New Mexico operations merged with PNM. PNM is New Mexico’s largest electricity utility, serving 485,000 electricity customers in about 100 communities.