Metering Software And System; Metercat; Energyaxis Metering Automation Server; Operation Of The A3 Alpha Meter With Ilc2 Option Board - Elster A3 ALPHA Product Manual

A3 ALPHA Meter/Node (ILC2)
Product Guide
Metering Software and
System
Operation of the
A3 ALPHA Meter with
ILC2 Option Board
4
1
If you do not see the Remote tab, select Remote as a program option
in the Properties tab of your program.
Note. If the remote definition is not programmed into the meter, the ILC2 will not
be able to return any meter reads to MAS.
The other options can be set as desired. For more information on using Meter-
cat, see the Metercat user guide (TM42-2203K or later) or the online Help.

Metercat

The A3 ALPHA meter operating as a node in the EnergyAxis System requires
Elster Electricity Metercat support software release 1.8 or later. Metercat offers
the following features:
■ program development to create user-defined configuration data
meter programming to send user-defined configuration data or com-
■
mands to the meter
■ meter reading to receive data that has been stored by the meter
■ diagnostic read including ILC2 option board and LAN status

EnergyAxis Metering Automation Server

The EnergyAxis Metering Automation Server (MAS) reads meters over telephone
or wireless networks. Using MAS, meter readings can be scheduled or per-
formed on-request from the browser-based user interface. MAS allows all billing
data to be read from the meter; this includes data from each A3 ALPHA meter
registered with the EnergyAxis local area collector. Billing data from the
A3 ALPHA meter includes consumption, demand, time-of-use registers as well
as meter status flags. The A3 ALPHA meter data can be read from the stored
data in the collector or on-request by using MAS to communicate through the
collector to the individual A3 ALPHA meter.
Data exchange between MAS and other utility systems is performed using an
open XML schema, AMR Data Exchange Format (AMRDEF), so that interfaces
with billing systems and other enterprise systems can be easily implemented.
MAS also comes with the JSlinger module, a powerful driver for file transfer pro-
tocol (FTP) that can transform, compress and encrypt data files prior to sending
them to trusted IP addresses across the Internet.
The A3 ALPHA meter and the ILC2 option board communicate within the Ener-
gyAxis system 900 MHz radio frequency network. The primary task of the ILC2
option board is to communicate with the LAN and to provide meter readings
from the A3 ALPHA meter and pass on commands to the A3 ALPHA meter.
While the time base within the A3 ALPHA meter is maintained by its super
capacitor and a battery, time is adjusted automatically by the network when
required.

Billing Date

The EnergyAxis System handles the billing dates for the registered A3 ALPHA
meters. MAS assigns each meter to one of 30 possible billing dates, and then
MAS transmits the billing dates to the meters' respective collectors. On the bill-
ing date, the collector schedules the meter to perform a demand reset at the
next midnight crossing.
DRAFT
June 2008