Innovation award for Sentec's new gas metering technology

Citation

(2008), "Innovation award for Sentec's new gas metering technology", Sensor Review, Vol. 28 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2008.08728bab.002

Innovation award for Sentec's new gas metering technology

Article Type: News From: Sensor Review, Volume 28, Issue 2.

Lattice, Sentec's new, low cost, solid- state gas metering technology, has won the prestigious European Utility Award for Innovation.

The award was judged by a panel of industry experts, including Accenture and Synergy, who described Lattice as an innovation with significant potential for bringing fully integrated, affordable residential smart metering to the gas market.

Lattice uses an entirely new measurement principle that eliminates the need for moving parts and enables “smart” functionality, yet will cost no more than a traditional mechanical meter. It measures the volume of gas being used by “marking” gas and recording the amount of time it takes to pass through a set length of pipe. It complies with the very demanding levels of accuracy set by the EU Measuring Instruments Directive, has a low-energy demand, and is not affected by debris or fluid in the pipe.

As the first affordable solid state gas meter, Lattice's potential to give utilities companies a competitive edge is revolutionary it provides a platform for a number of added-value features such as AMR, AMM, tamper alerts, automatic safety cut-offs, load profiling, TOU metering, and can provide displays to inform and influence consumer behaviour. The UK government has already announced its intention for all households to have smart meters by 2015, and inevitably other countries will take the same approach; Lattice technology will enable delivery of this energy conservation measure.

Sentec Chairman Richard King commented: “This award is a recognition of the substantial resources we have invested in Lattice over the last year, as part of our wider commitment to the development of smart metering for all the utilities sectors. The energy supplier, in most countries, faces huge competitive pressures and needs better tools at his command. Finances, legislation and the increasing power and influence of the customer and consumer will see to that. Lattice provides a better tool for the gas market to achieve smart metering on a much larger scale than previously seen.”

Sentec is now entering the final stages of discussions about exploiting the technology via partners and remains on target to agree its first deals early in 2008.

For further details, please visit web site: www.sentec.co.uk