SAP today announced that the Electricity Service Department of City of Cape Town successfully went live with the SAP Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Integration for Utilities software component.
The project enables the City of Cape Town to automatically read electricity meters on demand whilst integrating the smart meters and the associated processes into the SAP ERP back office and customer facing SAP for Utilities Billing Components.
The focus for the first phase was on large commercial and industrial customers, with future plans including further rollout to residential and other consumers. The project is the first implementation of the software in the Republic of South Africa. The announcement was made at the SAP Conference for Utilities 2012, being held April 17-19 in Madrid.
With SAP AMI Integration for Utilities, the City of Cape Town is able to read meters remotely, eliminating issues of access to premises, travel time and manual data capturing errors – thereby ensuring 100% accuracy of bills. In addition, the utility can offer tailored billing services based on actual consumption data and meter reading that better matches the consumers’ needs.
Information on customer energy usage is collected from smart meters and stored in a meter data unification system (MDUS) provided by local company Elster Kent. SAP AMI Integration for Utilities facilitates the continuous exchange of master and transactional data between MDUS and SAP® for Utilities solutions. This information is then used in business processes such as invoicing and customer service or for analysis of energy consumption and consumption forecasting.
“SAP AMI Integration for Utilities is the foundation of our smart metering infrastructure,” said Andre Stelzner, CIO, City of Cape Town.
“We will be able to analyse consumption profiles and then use them to more accurately predict demand and align supply. We thereby increase energy efficiency by balancing demand, delivery and supply.”
This AMI project is a great initiative made by the city which as it lays the foundation for the future Smart Grid and Intelligent Energy Management strategies that are being adopted by other utilities organisations around the world,” concludes Andrew Strachan, Industry Principle for Utilities, SAP Africa.
Staff writer
when will it roll out in residential homes in Cape Town.