In an industry where advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) deployments can take as long as two years, the ability to successfully implement a full system in a matter of months is just one of the reasons the electric cooperative and municipal market sales at DCSI (St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.) increased coop sales from US$79 million in 2006, to $94 million in 2007, or more than 18%. DCSI is the power line communications (PLC) AMI subsidiary within the Communications Segment of ESCO Technologies Inc.

South Central Indiana Rural Electric Membership Corp. (SCI REMC; Martinsville, Indiana, U.S.) recently deployed the TWACS AMI solution by DCSI to more than 34,000 meters. It took only four months for SCI REMC and DCSI to jointly complete the project, which allows SCI REMC to remotely read meters and connect and disconnect service from its operation center.

“By partnering with DCSI, we were able to complete our project implementation on a very tight schedule,” said Jack Hubbard, manager of engineering for SCI REMC. “It is a significant accomplishment to be able to install all end points and 21 substations in less than four months.”

With the implementation of TWACS PLC technology, SCI REMC's engineering department now receives valuable data that allows it to effectively analyze member usage, and use voltage and outage information to identify service-reliability issues. The coop also will save a considerable amount of money within operations managing the system's operational efficiency using these AMI units. In the near future, it will offer its members optional off-peak rates and a fully enabled load-control program.