In 2010, Ontario’s energy board mandated that time-of-use (TOU) pricing for consumers be available for all consumers on a regulated price plan. To meet this requirement, Hydro One needed to quickly deploy a smart meter and intelligent communications network solution to meet the provincial government’s requirement at a low cost. The network needed to cover Hydro One’s expansive service territory, which has a land mass twice the size of Texas, and its customers live in a mix of urban, rural, and remote areas, some places only accessible by air, rail, boat or snowmobile. Most importantly, the network needed to enable future enterprise-wide business efficiencies, modernization of distribution infrastructure and enhanced customer service. To meet these needs, Hydro One conceptualized an end-to-end solution leveraging open standards and Internet Protocols (IP) at all communication levels. The utility drew upon industry leaders like Trilliant to realize this vision.

The big problem that Utilities face includes:(i) How to make meters “smart” and ingest the data from homes to the companies and;(ii) how to derive intelligent actions from huge amounts of meter data, in an efficient and cost-effective way.Solving these problems would help Utilities track & monitor water consumption data, identify leakage, theft & various anomalies. This demands the need of a scalable system with remote asset management & proactive maintenance capabilities. This would also help end-consumers understand their water usage for better decision-making to conserve water.

In 2011, BC Hydro began an ambitious smart grid project that included replacing old electromechanical meters with nearly two million state-of-the-art smart meters. The company undertook its industry-leading smart grid rollout with the goals of improving energy efficiency and reliability in the region while reducing losses and more quickly identifying power outages. As BC Hydro began its smart meter roll-out, the leadership quickly recognized that without the right technology, it would face significant challenges integrating data from so many different sources throughout its operations.