Empresa Distribuidora de Electricidad del Sur (Edesur; Dominican Republic) has awarded Distribution Control Systems Inc. (DCSI; St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.) a contract for the installation of its Two-Way Automatic Communication System (TWACS) AMI for 100% of Edesur's commercial/industrial customers.

Edesur wanted to reduce lost revenue, and operational and meter-reading costs. The company also realized that if it provided customers with reliable electric service by controlling demand, instituting proactive maintenance programs and expanding the power distribution infrastructure, it could increase the possibilities of attracting new businesses and improving the Dominican Republic's economy.

Not only can Edesur communicate directly with each commercial/industrial meter in its system (within less than 20 seconds for individual on-demand reads), but when downloading mass readings, the speed increases rapidly. Special applications that are built within the TWACS system include reverse-energy detection to help pinpoint nontechnical losses and the OPTIMUM software solution that provides web-service integration to third-party software applications, including customer information systems, information technology departments, legacy software and billing systems.

Edesur also has included OASys in its deployment plans. This system leverages the TWACS system connectivity to provide the utility with valuable outage location and scope as well as distribution system reliability information. Such information enables the utility to promptly and accurately pinpoint energy-delivery problems, restore the system and deliver dependable electric power to its commercial/industrial customers.

“After testing several AMI systems for a year, we concluded that the TWACS system is the best suited to meet our needs in reducing nontechnical losses and unnecessary costs that would be incurred if we had to replace existing meters. The TWACS system enables us to serve all our customers without concern to geographic location, and it provides TOU [time of use] and interval data-metering needs,” said Edesur's director of telecommunications, systems and communications. “There will be almost no need for estimated billings and we will be able to provide on-demand meter reads for internal and external meter-reading verification. The system has the ability to provide hourly consumption reads to help our customer service personnel quickly resolve any billing issue.”