Echelon Corporation unveiled the DC-1000/SL Data Concentrator for its Networked Energy Services (NES) advanced metering system at the Metering & Billing/CRM Europe 2006 event in Copenhagen.

In the NES system, data concentrators manage and supervise all of the electricity meters connected to a low-voltage transformer and provide access to the data, services, and events generated from the meters over a choice of Internet Protocol (IP) wide area networks (WAN), such as GSM, GPRS, fiber optics, IP radio and medium-voltage power line. The DC-1000/SL represents the second generation of NES data concentrator, providing a more compact form factor and more robust environmental specifications.

The DC-1000/SL has been designed to be mounted directly behind a meter. It is offered in different capacities, with the ability to manage as few as five meters or as many as 1024, to provide a cost-effective solution for both rural and urban environments. In rural areas the DC-1000/SL can be mounted behind a meter at a customer’s house, bringing the WAN connection directly to the meter and eliminating the need and expense for dedicated installation crews or an extra housing for the data concentrator. In urban areas, it can be co-located with an external current transformer meter (often used as part of theft detection programs to measure the total power being supplied to all customers on a given transformer) to provide a compact and simplified installation.

The DC-1000/SL’s robust weather-resistant packaging also incorporates an internal modem bay that enables the inclusion of a customer-preferred modem, providing the flexibility to use whichever wide area networks are most convenient. This internal modem bay eliminates external modem wiring, power supply and mounting costs, enabling streamlined installation and more complete and faster (thus lower cost) pre-assembly.