Menu
OpenlinkIQ® is an organization founded by Kamstrup A/S with the purpose to share a truly open, robust, interoperable, long range and free-to-use radio communication specification (LPWAN) within the smart metering industry, based on our long experience with wireless solutions and standardization.
Through many years Kamstrup A/S has been manufacturing meters and solutions for Electricity, Heat/Cooling and Water. In the beginning, utilities were reading the consumption data on the meter display once a year to be able to send a bill to the customer. Reading of the display requires access to the customers premises if the meter is installed inside a house. As this task is time consuming and sometimes difficult, meter manufacturers have always aimed for technologies to reduce the cost of reading out consumption data.
With the introduction of affordable radio technologies it was possible to perform collection of consumer data with a data receiver installed in e.g. a car circulating in the vicinity of the houses where the meters were installed. A wireless meter reading standard (wireless M-Bus) was developed to assure compatibility and business opportunities for meter reading systems. Once a quarter or year, readings can be performed using such Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) systems for billing purposes.
When it comes to meter readings today, the trend in Europe is that consumption data from several thousand end devices can be monitored more often than just for the purpose of billing. New directives are underway, which require the utilities to offer consumption data to be made available to the consumer on request. With this information, the consumer can optimize energy or water consumption by changing habits, to save money on the bill. A utility may want to control the heat distribution to a whole district. To enable this, an image of flow, temperature and pressure data from a large population of meters and sensors, shall be collected within a very short period and made available for analysis.
The collection of data from thousands of end devices over a short period of time is possible in a fully automated fixed network system. Advanced Metering Infrastructures (AMI) allows a population of smart meters to transfer consumption data (and other information) to a utility’s server 24/7. As a result, the utility does not have to schedule readout intervals or personnel for billing.
Long range radio technology is important as the number of infrastructure components needed to collect data is reduced. This shortens the time required to establish a network in your supply area as you can spend less time to find and negotiate the terms for using suitable antenna sites. The lower number of components and reduced time further decreases your investment to get started with remote reading through a fixed network.
Kamstrup A/S has a well proven track record of producing battery optimal long range AMI technology, that has already been deployed large scale in millions of metering points in Europe. The fact that it is battery optimal, is important to e.g. water meters, which are typically battery powered and life time can be up to 20 years without service.