Lafayette Utilities System Selects Elster EnergyAxis for Smart Grid Solution
Elster has announced that Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) has chosen EnergyAxis as its multi-utility Smart Grid solution. Partially funded by a United States Department of Energy Smart Grid Investment Grant, the $11.6 million deployment will provide energy-saving benefits to LUS customers. The turnkey project is anticipated to be installed on a 12-month deployment schedule with completion in 2013.
LUS serves approximately 66,000 combined electric and water customers in Lafayette, Louisiana, most of whom have combined electric and water service. Elster’s EnergyAxis will power an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) project for LUS customers, delivering operational improvements and providing consumers with more flexibility in electricity and water usage. The increased visibility into energy and water consumption will enable LUS customers to manage, control and monitor their costs of usage.
“Providing our customers with greater flexibility, improved customer service and increased energy efficiency is important to LUS,” said Andrew Duhon, customer and support services manager for LUS.
“We chose Elster’s field-proven Smart Grid solution because of its expertise in electric and water metering and its potential to increase operational efficiency and cut energy costs,” Duhon added.
EnergyAxis will deliver a comprehensive multi-utility system capable of improving customer service through usage monitoring. Communication between Smart Meters and the system head-end will enable LUS to reduce operational costs and minimize outage management response time.
“Elster’s selection as the provider for the multi-utility LUS Smart Grid Investment Grant project is a demonstration of the power and functionality the EnergyAxis solution provides,” said Mark Munday, CEO and president of Elster Solutions.
“We look forward to helping LUS improve operational processes that will result in increased efficiency and energy savings,” Munday added.
Elster’s EnergyAxis, a field-proven Smart Grid solution with more than 90 active deployments and five million endpoints across the globe, enables utilities to:
- Realize operational efficiencies;
- Conserve environmental and economic resources by reducing the losses in electricity, gas and water infrastructures;
- Improve customer service and consumer choice;
- Implement demand response programs that can conserve resources and reduce costs, especially during periods of peak demand;
- Provide real-time information to end consumers to allow them to better manage their energy consumption; and
- Detect and reduce non-technical grid losses.