Aclara Software Provides Hourly Usage Data To PPL Customers

St. Louis - A premier customer of advanced-metering infrastructure (AMI) brand Aclara, PPL Electric Utilities, Allentown, PA, is the first major electric utility to provide hourly usage data in a full system deployment via the Web. Hourly data helps customers see how their activities affect power usage and develop strategies to use energy wisely.

In addition, PPL Electric Utilities is using the hourly data to develop time-of-use rate options, which the utility plans to offer to all its customers starting in 2010. These plans provide different rates based on the cost of power throughout the day, allowing individuals to make more informed decisions about when they use electricity and how much they pay for it.

Access to the hourly usage data and other information is available to business and residential customers through a secure account log-in on the myPPL Web site. Customers of PPL Electric Utilities sign on to their account and are presented a dashboard hosted by Aclara.

The dashboard allows customers to see all the important features of the most recent bill: bill highlights, how energy was used by electric appliance for the billing cycle, how billing cycle electricity usage compares with customers with similar home profiles, and links to find personalized ways to reduce their electric bill. Another new feature for PPL Electric Utilities' customers using the dashboard is bill-todate, which lets them see how much electricity they have used since their last bill and generates an estimate of their next bill.

"PPL Electric Utilities continues to find innovative ways to use the Aclara dashboard and provide its customers with benefits of the hourly data collected through its AMI deployment," said Dave Bonnett, Vice President, Software Product Management, Aclara Software Inc. "These solutions provide customers with much more than just a bill. They allow customers to see why their bill changed and what they can do to take greater control of their electricity use."

The hourly data being presented to customers is collected from PPL Electric Utilities' 1.4 million customers using Aclara TWACS advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) technology. Aclara's meter data management system (MDMS) then performs back-office data processing including advanced validation, editing, and estimation (VEE) to ensure that data presented to the customers is high quality and accurate.

The AMI implementation at PPL Electric Utilities is one of the largest in the United States, and has been fully functional since 2004.

Nearly 240,000 customers have registered to use the myPPL Web site, and approximately 6.5 percent of PPL Electric Utilities customers signed on to its dashboards in October.

About Aclara
The Aclara brand represents the industry's leading fixed-network Advanced Metering Infrastructure technologies and Meter Data Management software serving water, gas, and electric utilities globally. Three technologies provide Aclara customers premier solutions including TWACS® Technology (power line communications), STAR® Network (licensed radio frequency), and Aclara Software™ (meter data and asset management). Over 500 utilities in nine countries rely on proven Aclara solutions to connect with their customers. Aclara is part of the Utility Solutions Group of ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ESE). Capturing data. Liberating Knowledge.™

About PPL Electric Utilities
PPL Electric Utilities Corporation, a subsidiary of PPL Corporation that provides electricity delivery services to about 1.4 million customers in Pennsylvania, has consistently ranked among the best companies for customer service in the United States.

SOURCE: Aclara