Explanation...

The picture to the left shows an Internet Energy Systems Pulse Initiator unit

The IES pulse initiator (shown above) provides a 12-volt power to the IES gateways as well as a pulse for each revolution of the electromechanical meter. The IES pulse initiator/power supply can be retrofitted into GE, ABB, and Landis & Gyr electromechanical electric meters. These meters require a black stripe and power connections. Each type of IES gateway can be interfaced to up to 4 pulse meters or 2 pulse meters and 2 encoder-type meters. Encoder types supported by IES include the Sensus and Neptune encoder registers. This allows the IES gateway to support any combination of four electric, gas, or water meters at a customer site.

The IES system can easily connect to customer's existing Neptune or Sensus water meters with outside read boxes. Therefore, many customers' existing water meter populations can remain intact, without costly new wireless water meter registers. To connect the other water meters, customers simply needs to finish retrofitting them with the Neptune or Sensus registers and run wires just as they would for an outside read box. The registers can be wired directly to the IES gateway. Each gateway has a combination of 4 pulse or encoder inputs, so a single gateway could read the electric, water, and even gas meters.

A gateway is connected to the pulse initiator/power supply through a 3-wire interface that includes 12-volt power, ground, and pulse.

Each IES gateway stores the pulse data in non-volatile memory so that if power is lost, the pulse count will be kept. Due to memory writing constraints, the pulse data is only periodically written to the non-volatile memory. Therefore, it is possible for some pulse data to be lost during a power failure. However, the number of pulses that could be lost is small. As well, IES recommends that every two years a manual reading of the electromechanical meter be taken and entered into the gateway for synchronization purposes. This will allow for any missing pulses to be accounted for.