Meter Networks
Meter Networks: A key player in Management & Billing Precision
Meter networks are one of the most common root causes of consumption being billed to the wrong end consumer.
Drew Fox
A Meter Network involves the interconnection and dependency of two or more meters down stream of the same supply point. They play a key role in the UK’s commercial water market by capturing read data at multiple levels within a single supply point.
But how exactly do they function, and why are they of such significance?
An illustrative scenario where a Meter Network is critical is when a commercial property and a residential dwelling share the same building. To ensure that both the commercial business and the residential property are billed only for the water they individually consume, a Meter Network is introduced.
Typically, a meter network comprises a primary meter and one or more submeters, also called Deduction Meters. The primary meter’s role within the network is to record the consumption of all connected meters. In contrast, the submeter records solely the consumption of the residential property. During invoicing, the consumption of the residential property is subtracted from the total consumption recorded by the primary meter, resulting in a deducted consumption volume for which the residential property is billed. Suppose another commercial property is part of the meter network, and its consumption is registered on a submeter. In that case, its invoice will appear as a conventional single-site invoice, as consumption deductions are exclusively made from the primary.
While meter networks have introduced numerous advantages to the UK commercial water market, they do face certain challenges:
- Sub meters are often in difficult to read or unknown locations resulting in meters that have not been read for extended periods of time
- Billable volume or consumption on master and sub meters can be difficult to calculate as the number of meter relationships and varying read dates increases
Looking ahead, technological advancements hold promise for meter networks. AMR meters offer substantial benefits by providing regular automated readings, creating greater confidence in billing accuracy. We’ll talk about about AMR (Automated Meter Readings) in our next blog post.
Despite the current challenges, Meter networks assume a critical role in the UK commercial water market, effectively resolving the challenge of allocating consumption when multiple sites share the same supply. As technology continues to advance, these challenges are likely to be addressed, with meters poised to resolve the issue of long-unread meters, ultimately ensuring heightened billing precision across the market.