Elster expands metering reach in UK

The UK’s second-largest energy supply company is preparing to roll out both smart electricity and gas meters to its customer base.

Scottish and Southern Energy Supply Limited (SSE), which serves more than 10 million customers throughout Great Britain, plans to complete the first phase of its metering deployment by the middle of 2012. It expects to use advanced meters from Germany’s Elster, which specializes in electricity, gas and water measurement, monitoring and control technologies.

SSE will deploy the latest additions to Elster’s smart meter portfolio: the next-generation AS300 electricity meter and the BK-G4 gas meter. Elster tailored a solution specifically to enable SSE meet regulatory requirements and its future upgrade needs. For example, the communications hub will be both securely attached to and powered from the smart electricity meter. That way, the utility can change communications technologies in the future without changing the meter or needing to disconnect customers in the process.

The metering technology is also designed to comply with the latest industry standards for data privacy and security so customers are protected against fraud and tampering.