MeterSmart
in Brief
18 February 2004
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In partnerships with utilities, MeterSmart provides
commercial and industrial (C&I) submetering solutions through
hardware and services. Born out of a project in South Texas with
a Hunt Power L.P. affiliate, they initiated operations as an independent
division in 1999.
Differentiation
As a young company, MeterSmart faces numerous entrenched competitors
in the submetering industry. According to Dan Price, President of
MeterSmart, a key differentiating factor of their submetering solution
is that their submeter can be installed on a C&I load behind
the utility meter without powering down the production facility.
This can enable submetering solutions to be installed at 24/7 manufacturing
plants without end-customer downtime. A second value point in working
with MeterSmart in created through augmenting the master meter with
enhanced data from the independent loads within the facility.
Industry Trends
In Mr. Price’s viewpoint, constrained capacity and increasing
electricity and gas prices are two long term industry trends driving
the introduction of demand-response programs. Interval data metering/submetering
and real time access to the meter data are core requirements for
the implementation of demand-response programs. The industry trend
towards demand-response programs will support long-term growth of
MeterSmart’s opportunities.
Company Development
MeterSmart has made two acquisitions to date. Both acquisitions
were conducted to improve the value proposition of MeterSmart. Utility
Data Resources was acquired in 2001 to improve the services and
software side of their value proposition. E-Mon was acquired in
2002 to improve the metering hardware side of their value proposition.
Mr. Price describes the marriage of service and hardware a “Having
lots of fit with the acquisitions, and not much overlap between
the two.”
Manufacturing facilities are located in Langhorne
PA, San Diego CA, and Reyonosa MEX. Headquarters are in Arlington
Texas.
Customers
Primarily, MeterSmart’s customers are utilities operating
in the US. As of January 2004, MeterSmart has not yet expanded outside
of the US, but Mr. Price reports that he is examining opportunities
in Canada and Mexico. Some key customers include Southern California
Edison, KCP&L, Alabama Electric Coop, and Sharyland Utilities.
Business Performance
MeterSmart is a privately held corporate subsidiary of Hunt Power
L.P. As such, business performance figures such as revenue or team
size are not available. However, MeterSmart was able to share the
number of meter reads and meters managed per year.
In 2002, MeterSmart performed 2.2 million remote meter
reads. In 2003, MeterSmart performed 2.5 million remote meter reads.
MeterSmart currently manages more than 10,000 meters
in the field collecting interval data, as well as 5,000 loggers.
Of the 10,000 meters, half are for submeter points within a facility.
Regarding the actual meters, 14% are manufactured by MeterSmart
while the remaining 86% are third party manufactured.
Future Pressures
Mr. Price is focused on expanding the value proposition through
new products and strategic acquisitions.
In the recent past, MeterSmart’s value proposition
was improved with respect to the means by which data was communicated
to end customers. Rather than simply posting the information on
a secure website, MeterSmart has developed exception-handling business
rules to alert end customers of odd behavior. This effort also led
to the emailing of weekly consumption reports to consumption managers.
According to Mr. Price, future development of MeterSmart’s
value proposition is focused on a “see and save” strategy.
In this approach, customers can see their data, have that data converted
into information that shows them how to save money, and then take
action on that information. Such a strategy will require the incorporation
of an “expert system” within their service solutions.
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