With China expected to build more than 70 million new homes over the next 10 years, China ’s Holley Metering Ltd (“Holley Metering”) is rolling out a new wireless automated meter reading ( AMR ) system that will help the country’s public utilities better deal with its unprecedented housing boom. Based on Ember Corporation’s ZigBee technology, the new AMR system will potentially save China ’s utility providers millions of Yuan and improve service delivery by eliminating the need to manually read meters at homeowners’ premises.
The ZigBee-based AMR system creates self-forming, self-healing wireless mesh networks across neighborhoods and apartment complexes that link meters with utilities’ corporate offices. They can remotely monitor a residence’s electric, gas and water usage more efficiently with fewer errors and at lower costs, while improving customer service. Although Holley Metering currently offers a total wireless AMR solution based on GSM /GPRS/CDMA mobile network s designed for industrial and commercial applications , the technology and infrastructure requirements are too costly for widescale deployment in the residential field.
“This year, Shanghai will build towers with more living and working space than there is in all the towers in New York City ,” said Tony Delgado, Ember’s director of business development for Asia. “The ease, efficiency and lower cost of standards-based ZigBee wireless networks is the most logical way to meet the residential metering demands of China ’s explosive housing market.”
Holley Metering, China’s largest utility meter manufacture and AMR system/solution provider , will initially launch a family of Ember-enabled electric meters, with plans to develop gas and water meters later in 2006. The company will roll out its new AMR system in China , but it intends to export the system to the 30 countries in which it currently does business.
“As China’s leading electric meter exporter, it was critical that we base our AMR system on a widely adopted industry standard,” said Dr. Wu Yue, director of R&D center of Holley Metering, and also the ZigBee AMR system project manager. “We partnered with Ember because it had the most mature ZigBee platform, enabling us to reduce our product development time dramatically . We also hope that ZigBee technology will help us to enhance our product’s price/performance ratio remarkably . ”
About ZigBee: Wireless Control That Simply Works
The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies working together to enable reliable, cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global standard. The ZigBee Alliance is a rapidly growing, non-profit industry consortium of leading semiconductor manufacturers, technology providers, OEMs, and end-users worldwide. Membership is open to all. Additional information can be found at www.zigbee.org.
About Holley Metering Ltd.
Headquartered in Hangzhou , China , Holley Metering Ltd. (HML) is the country’s top electricity meter manufacturer and AMR system/solution provider in China . Founded in 1970, HML is one of the biggest local employers with 3800 employees and plays a vital role in the local economy , occupying approximately 30 percent domestic market share . For the quality goods and services offered by the company, HML was awarded “China Top Brand” in 2003. The parent company of HML is Holley Group, which is a privately owned company diversifying in utility meters and systems, power automation, wireless communications, pharmaceuticals and real estates, etc . For more information, please visit http://www.holleymeter.com or www.holley.cn.
About Ember Corporation
Ember enables communication among embedded microcontrollers with standards-based wireless mesh networking semiconductors and software. Ember helps its customers to automate home appliances, lower energy consumption in buildings, keep borders and infrastructure secure, and control industrial processes, just to name four of the many diverse applications being developed by Ember’s more than 100 customers. Spun out of MIT in 2001, Ember is headquartered in Boston and has its radio development center in Cambridge , England and distributors worldwide. Ember is a lead member of the ZigBee Alliance, and its platform is the National Technical Systems’ (NTS) “Golden Suite” for 802.15.4/ZigBee interoperability testing. For more information, please visit www.ember.com.
