Over 170 delegates from water, gas and electricity utilities, regulators and metering service providers across Australia, New Zealand and overseas.
This year the conference attracted a nice mix of delegates, with almost 40% utilities and around 50% vendors....
The Plenary Opening Session, chaired by Dr David Cornelius, provided an overview of the major developments across Australia and New Zealand with respect to energy policy, full retail competition across Australia with the spotlight on Queensland, smart metering and demand management and compliance regulatory regimes. David gave an informative summary on the current status with respect to energy reform and the harmonisation of metrology procedures across Australia. The Plenary Opening Session also covered Solar Cities which is a $75.3 million initiative announced by the Australian Prime Minister in the Energy White Paper, “Securing Australia’s Energy Future”, in June 2004. The Solar Cities programme will run from 2004/05 to 2012/13 which aims to support at least four Solar City projects in grid-connected urban centres across Australia and is designed to demonstrate how solar power, smart meters, energy efficiency and new approaches to electricity pricing can combine to provide a sustainable energy future in urban locations throughout Australia. It is a partnership approach that involves all levels of Government, the private sector and the local community. The two papers presented in the Plenary Opening Session were from the Adelaide Solar City project (first project awarded in 2006) and the Townsville Solar City project (second project awarded just weeks before the conference).
In Australia, the topic of AMR/AMM/AMI is picking up momentum and subsequently delegates flocked to the presentations in sessions 1 and 2 to listen to developments re the commencement of Victoria’s technology trials, Energy Australia’s pricing trial, Integral Energy’s pricing trial and Wide Bay Water Corporation’s AMR implementation.
Our international speakers in the “International Smart Metering” were happy to answer many questions from the audience. Alexandra Curran gave an enlightening overview on the issues in Australia associated with demand response. The case studies from Toronto Hydro, Ericsson, Ontario Energy Association and Enel’s Telegestore provided much food for thought for what drivers had worked outside Australia and what could be learnt from that.
All sessions were well attended allowing water, electricity and gas industry delegates to gain something from all sessions. Papers were not all about the metering technologies alone, but also focused on other aspects related to the technology. One example is the paper by Maria Cugnetto on “Customer Behaviour in Demand Side Management (DSM) Programmes – Progress to Date and Challenges Ahead” Maria spoke of the increase in peak demand and the mixed success rates associated with DSM, therefore calling on the need for more research in this area. Her PhD studies at RMIT, commencing in January 2007, form part of the 3 year research study into Carbon Neutral Communities, which takes into account customer behaviour and capacity building measures.
This year, the programme included new session topics, namely Metering for Distributed & Renewable Generation, Trends in Customer Management and Metering Standards and Measurement. Interesting papers from these sessions included cogeneration of an air-conditioning system, leading edge sustainable buildings and district energy systems in residential developments. In the standards session, papers for all three utilities were presented. These included gas testing- future standards by Stan Brulinski, revision of the OIML electricity meter standard by Dr Grahame Harvey and the national metering and measuring project (water) by Bernadette Zerba.
The networking and exhibition sessions were enjoyed by all, in particular the Synergy function at the Crewe Bar on Monday night and Elster’s invitation to the Belgian Beer Cafe Brussels on Tuesday night.
Special thanks go out to the other sponsors: Energex, Metering Dynamics, Itron, MultiBill Corp., Talgentra, Ampe Email Metering, SAP.
Also a special thanks goes out to the following exhibiting companies:
Arc Innovations, PRI Ltd, EnergYICT, Zera GmhH, Harcor Seals, Kisters Pty Ltd.
This year saw the launch of a new association at the conference for utility metering professionals in Australia and New Zealand. Under the name Utility Metering Association (UMA), the association will provide a forum where utility industry professionals and non-professionals (electricity, gas, water, irrigation) can discuss and debate issues associated with the development of a holistic, strategic approach to metering systems.
Maria Cugnetto, founder of UMA, presented the new association and the website to a wide audience of metering professionals. All participants present at the conference were offered the opportunity to become founding members of UMA. For more information about the association; www.utilitymeteringassociation.com
The AURPA 2006 conference was hosted in Brisbane at the same venue and this year AURPA delegates had the opportunity to attend both conferences. Many AURPA delegates chose to take up this option. The renowned trainer, Dr Karl Seger provided his internationally certified Advanced Revenue Protection one-day workshop that was well presented and attended; all participants receiving a signed certificate of attendance from Karl. Itzick Michaeli from Israel Electric was a key speaker at this year’s event which was a great success. Support from the three co-sponsors, Itron, JW Ross & Sons (Australia) and Vircom-EMS made the AURPA Conference Dinner possible and most enjoyable. A great time was had by all. Julie Gormly, the AURPA website designer, was also able to join the AURPA members at the gala dinner function.
Feedback from the conference was very positive and the committee will now work on the programme for next year- the 2007 Metering Billing/CRM Australia-New Zealand conference to be hosted in Melbourne in October. Keep the 23rd, 24th and 25th October free in your diary. Melbourne, in Victoria, is certainly going to be an excellent location for our 2007 conference as the Victorian Government embarks on its program to deliver Advanced Metering Infrastructure to all Victorian electricity consumers commencing in 2008.