 Bullhorn Remote Monitoring Offers Natural Gas Providers and Customers with Accurate, Cost-Effective Daily Volume Data
According to the American Gas Association (AGA), natural gas serves approximately 5 million businesses, 207,000 factories and 1,800 electric generating units in the US. The natural gas deregulation process has resulted in increased competition, which helps lower the cost of natural gas and increase customer choice. Lowering energy costs allows customers to allocate funds elsewhere, giving them a competitive advantage. In an environment wherein gas customers can choose their own suppliers, daily data on energy volume, communicated efficiently and accurately, is critical to good decision making for all the parties involved in the process.
A major gas company providing natural gas distribution services to 80% of an unregulated state, needed a reliable, inexpensive and easy-to-implement solution to collect and communicate daily measurement meter data for commercial and industrial customers. The company chose American Innovations' Bullhorn Remote Monitoring System and the Bullhorn Asset Tracker (BAT™) website in order to collect and distribute valuable information for themselves, the customers and the gas brokers.
The company installed a Bullhorn AMR6 unit at each meter site in order to monitor a large volume of meters scattered through urban and rural locations. The units are solar powered with sealed lead acid battery, easy to install, and feature 6 digits of meter resolution for accurate, reliable daily reading of gas volume through industrial or commercial positive displacement (PD) meters. The AMR6 communicates data from the meter via a reliable digital cellular (GSM) network, and sends the information to the BAT website, which provides the data via reports (which can include data points for units & unit groups, date ranges, by unit or asset type) and insight into unit performance, among other features. The data is also accessible by smart phone via BAT™mobile. The data is integrated into the company's own measurement and accounting systems (Flowcal and PGAS) from BAT.
Customers now utilize daily usage information to make informed decisions on whom to buy from and better manage the monthly gas budget. Suppliers and brokers use the data to keep supplies and deliveries balanced. In addition, the gas company is using Bullhorn to collect daily data on corrected volumes from electronic correctors, which generate a pulse output for corrected volume, without employing an additional system.
Currently, the company has installed over 4800 units for across the state and has plans to expand its operations further in order to better serve its commercial and industrial customers.
For more information on using Bullhorn for a gas measurement application, please contact Sales.
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