Enabling better communication between utilities companies and their customers_

As global demand for energy grows and costs escalate, utility companies must find ways to improve operational efficiency – while maintaining the highest levels of customer service.

To achieve this, one major technology firm developed a web-based solution for managing Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) networks for the electricity market. This would enable energy companies to remotely monitor customer usage, accurately and securely, using smart meter functionality – across urban and remote locations.

To support demand for an ever-increasing number of smart meters, and the resulting volumes of data, the existing Network Management User Interface (NMUI) for the AMI needed to scale. However, the AMI was showing signs of strain and, due to limitations in its user interface design, only worked efficiently for low numbers of meters. 

This made it a challenge to accurately identify issues in the field or support large scale smart meter rollouts. The company recognised that it needed to build a new NMUI that could work with very large numbers of assets – upwards of 1 million smart meters.

As a direct result of experience, skills and expertise acquired working on large-scale IoT projects in the industrial sector, Mobica was selected to support this project.

We designed and implemented a completely reworked NMUI solution based on a single page web app concept, delivering a completely new NMUI experience. This application is built to organise and manage large quantities of data and includes the ability to custom group specific elements or patterns from meters in the field. This approach helps to provide a greater level of analysis and insight into IoT data.

We also devised a solution that could manage different geo-mapping systems in multiple geographical areas.

The Mobica team worked closely with the client throughout the project, to build a more capable design for the desktop platform, featuring a highly responsive GUI. We also introduced multiple modes for presenting and filtering devices or device data – further improving the usability and versatility of the solution.