LoRa Smart Meter – Grid companies access the prepaid billing data and activate the household electricity supply in real-time

Billion-Case-Study-4700ZU-LoRa-Smart-Meter

Prepaid electricity billing systems and automated smart meter readings have been widely adopted by electricity companies worldwide nowadays to reduce the error of human reading and improve the efficiency of the billing process. To activate the prepaid system, a robust and reliable network is essential. One of the largest utility companies in Indonesia was looking for an LTE solution which can deliver reliable and secured internet connectivity in outdoor environments to connect the LoRa meters installed in households to the utility company’s Central Metering Control System that enables the automatic meter reading and billing to further control the power supply of 1,500 households in rural mountain areas.

Challenge

The internet connection is unstable and highly influenced by the terrain and weather in outdoor environments. However, the climate in Indonesia is almost entirely tropical with extreme rainfall variation ( Raining season-November to March and Relative humidity from 70% to 90%), and the temperature varies from season to season.

Solution

Billion provides BiPAC 4700ZU, the high-performance 4G/LTE Outdoor SIM Embedded VPN Router, serving as the backhaul to connect the LoRa base station which collects data from LoRa meters in households to the utility company’s Central Metering Control System. Based on the data, the system could automatically read, activate and deactivate the identified smart meters. By connecting the meter reading, controlling, and billing process to the Internet, the utility company was able to reduce the financial expense of hiring labourers to record the reading manually.

Features rugged IP67 enclosure, and a broad range of operating temperatures of 40°C-60°C/-40°F-140°F, BiPAC 4700ZU can endure the most challenging weathers and environments. Integrating with the 4G/LTE and optimal MIMO antenna, BiPAC 4700ZU can maximize LTE service coverage with data rates up to 100Mbps downlink and 50Mbps uplink. BiPAC 4700ZU can be flexibly positioned on any exterior wall, chimney, or pole with the mounting kit. BiPAC 4700ZU also supports robust VPN including IPSec/PPTP/L2TP/GRE, allowing users to establish private encryption tunnels over the public Internet to secure billing data transmission.

Result

“Through the implementation of BiPAC 4700ZU and theLoRa metering system, the grid company could access to the prepaid billing data and activate the household electricity supply in real-time. BiPAC 4700ZU not only enhanced the traditional metering and billing system but also helped the grid company to improve the efficiency of their service distribution process and corporate competitiveness”, said William Lee, the Senior Product Manager of Billion Electric Co., Ltd.

BiPAC 4700ZUL

LTE Outdoor Router

BiPAC 4700ZUL, LTE Outdoor IP67 Rugged Router, provides multiple LTE frequency bands and optimal MIMO antenna, enabling multiple high-bandwidth applications at peaks speeds up to 100Mbps downlink and 50Mbps uplink. It also offers IP67 hardened enclosure with industrial-grade components to withstand the most challenging outdoor environments ranging from -40°C-60°C/-40°F-140°F.

Comments are closed.