TWACS Update
September 2009
The City of Alcoa Electric department has over 27,000 meters that are monthly maintained. As of now there are 2,700 radio read meters and 24,810 meters that are manually read but these are slowly being converted to our TWACS system. There are 702 On-Demand meters which are commercial accounts, which will not be included on the TWACS system as of yet due to the high cost of those new meters.
Each month, the implementation of TWACS is constantly progressing. TWACS is a patented technology that will allow customers utilities to be communicated over existing power lines, directly into our networks at high frequency. At this point TWACS is intended to be used for electric meters, with the possibility of extending the system to read some water meters in the future.
The benefits of the new TWACS System are amazing! Not only is it a more efficient streamline system but provides useful information to both city departments and customers as well. The system will give specific information as in a customer’s usage, low usage times and peak times when their demand is the highest. Theft can also be detected more easily than it is now. Rereads can be done in seconds, whereas now a meter reader has to physically go to the address and read the meter, come back to the office and report the usage. Once all the meters are switched over, parallel reads will be done for approximately 3 months. Parallel reading is where the TWACS System will obtain the usage reading and a meter reader will also be manually reading the meter to ensure the system is reading precise, correct data. This will also decrease costs such as in fuel, reading time, and vehicle maintenance. With the help of this cost reduction it will allow meter services to eventually be able to install collars. These collars are placed behind the meter and enables power to be turned on and off directly from the office.
We would like to express thanks to the employees of meter services, and all of their hard work in making this transformation possible!
For more inforamtion please call (865)380-4700.
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