SBS designs smart metering upgrade utilising multiple communications technologies (APAM)
Smart Building Services (SBS) was commissioned by Australia Pacific Airports (Melbourne (APAM)) to undertake an audit of all water and electricity metering assets on the Melbourne Airport site, as part of the feasibility design stage of the proposed smart meter upgrade project for the airport.
Project specifications
APAM currently records all electricity and water meter information on its own databases. Project Stage 1 involved an audit to identify all existing metering points and types of meters, reconcile the resulting metering assets register with APAM databases, and identify areas where additional metering is required for cost recovery from airport tenants. Additional metering will also assist energy management and interface with SCADA systems for network power monitoring.
The current intention is to combine all meters under a single structure so the metering points can be located on the APAM database and accessible via its CAD system. Once all meters have been located and plotted on the CAD system, the proposed Automatic Meter Reading system will be completed using:
- the knowledge gained from the audit
- recommendations for suitable equipment to be installed to provide required accuracy for APAM’s on-going billing processes as well as monitoring for long term planning purposes
- recommendations for a suitable data retrieval network to reliably interrogate the remote meters and produce an on-line data service for APAM.
The SBS solution
SBS audited the entire Melbourne Airport site including Airside and Landside Terminal Precincts, Airport Operations Precinct, Cargo Precinct, Airline Maintenance Precinct and the Business Park.
A total of 767 electricity meters and 454 water meters were identified, catalogued and photographed. A preliminary design for the upgrade of the metering assets to smart meters complete with an Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system was prepared utilising hardwired LAN, WiFi LAN, GRPS telecommunications and RF telemetry.
These systems remotely connect the meters to an SBS database to host meter data with an online web browser software solution, allowing the client to access data in easy to read graphical reporting formats and to download and export data to third party applications including tenant billing engines.