METER DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, METHODS, AND SOFTWARE WITH OUTAGE MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present inventors recognized a need to leverage the data from Advanced Metering Systems (AMIs) in the management of electrical outages. To address this and/or other needs, they present inventors devised, among other things, systems, methods, and software that not only intelligently filter and communicate AMI outage data to Outage Management Systems (OMSs), but also facilitate communications between OMSs and multiple types of AMI systems. One exemplary system includes an outage management module that receives AMI outage data in the form of “last gasp” messages from meters and determines whether the OMS is already aware of a power outage associated with those meters. If the OMS is already aware of an outage associated with these meters, the outage management module excludes the outage reports from its communications with the OMS, thereby preserving its capacity to handle new outage information and overcoming a significant obstacle to using AMI data within OMSs.
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Citations
55 Claims
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1-14. -14. (canceled)
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15. A system for handling data from electrical usage meters comprising:
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a computer processor configured for receiving and storing messages for electrical usage meters, the messages including energization status messages; a computer processor configured for determining whether one or more of the energization status messages are associated with a known outage condition within an outage management system; and a computer processor configured for transmitting outage condition data based on one or more of the energization status messages to the outage management system, wherein the transmitted outage condition data excludes data based on the energization status messages determined to be associated with the known outage condition. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A system comprising:
a computer processor configured for optimizing interactions between advanced metering systems and utility back-office systems by filtering data from advanced metering systems prior to transmitting the data to the utility back-office systems in order to improve a utility'"'"'s ability to detect, analyze, and respond to outage events, thereby minimizing duration and customer impact of the outage events. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49)
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50. A method comprising:
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optimizing messaging interactions via a filtering of messages between advanced metering systems and outage management systems or other utility back-office systems; and maximizing an efficacy of the outage management systems or other utility back-office systems while protecting the outage management systems or other utility back-office systems from a messaging overload that could cause failure or unacceptable performance degradation of the outage management systems or other back-office system. - View Dependent Claims (51, 52, 53, 54)
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55. A non transient computer-readable medium carrying a data structure for facilitating management of electrical power outages, the data structure comprising:
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a first data field identifying an electrical usage meter; a second data field logically associated with the first data field providing an indication of an energization status of the electrical usage meter based on meter data; and a third data field logically associated with the first data field and providing an indication of the energization status of the electrical usage meter stored in an outage management system.
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Specification