Demonstration of an Automatic Meter Reading System in Army Family Housing

摘要

Current Department of Defense (DoD) guidance requires all new and renovated U.S.Army facilities to be equipped with power meters for tracking energy consumption patterns. An increasing number of meters are being installed at Army facilities, but growing manpower constraints are making it difficult for personnel to collect and properly record the data from these meters. An automatic meter reading (AMR) system is one potential way of collecting these data with minimal manpower requirements. As part of the Facilities Engineering Applications Program (FEAP), the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory demonstrated an AMR system for electric meters in the Hess Court family housing area of Fort Benjamin Harrison, IN. The system was found to be capable of meeting industry standards for metering and billing. Technical problems prevented the AMR system from becoming fully operational, however, and insufficient data were collected to confirm the system's effectiveness. Additionally, the system as configured in the test would never pay for itself. Nevertheless, these findings do not rule out the potential usefulness of AMR systems, after reliability and cost issues are addressed by the industry. It is recommended that the Army postpone implementation of AMR systems until the technology is more mature and the power industry approves standards for interconnectivity and quality assurance.