February 07, 2011

On-Ramp trial gathers data from 40k meters to 4 nodes

On-Ramp Wireless at DistribuTech last week disclosed that a network it built can now collect data from 40,000 smart meters spread over 2,000 square miles of San Diego county — all using just four mountain-top access points. During an ongoing trial, each simulated meter is submitting 2.4 KB/day of data — yet they are collectively using less than 20% of the network’s capacity, CEO Joaquin Silva told us.

“It’s the combination of long range with high-capacity support for many, many thousands of devices — plus very low power consumption — that is what we’re showing here,” said VP of Marketing Jonas Olsen. “Collecting from 40,000 meters with just four access points was always our theoretical claim but we just proved it over the past month,” Silva added. It would take about 35 access points to cover the entire 4,000-square-mile county due to all the nooks and crannies, he added.
The 65-person firm will be three years old next month and has 10 patents on radio technology that Silva said has 25 times the range of conventional 900 MHz RF mesh systems used by Silver Spring Networks and Itron.

The technology works by “finding wireless signals beneath the noise floor” that are up to 10,000 times weaker than those detectable by other radios, Silva said. The technology’s greater range means fewer repeaters, gateways and collectors. “We can cover very large areas for less than $500/square mile — about ten times lower than conventional RF infrastructure costs,” he noted. In fact, it has such great range that backhaul technology “becomes almost irrelevant.”

The technology is ideal for sparsely populated areas where reaching meters with RF mesh might require a boost from satellite links or a private network. “When the density of homes decreases to ten or 100 per square mile, the whole economics [of RF mesh] breaks down, because you can’t bounce the signals among meters or to repeaters,” Silva said. “The infrastructure cost per meter goes through the roof.”

On-Ramp has a “production contract” for a multi-purpose network with “a major US IOU” that Silva declined to name, citing the utility’s desire to publicize the deal itself. The firm’s potential market is strong in Europe and Asia, where regulations limit radio output power far more severely than in the US. On-Ramp recently won an AMI infrastructure contract in Asia, which Silva also declined to discuss.

The firm’s technology is being used in a very different way in an R&D project by Schweitzer Engineering, SDG&E and SoCal Edison and partly supported by a DOE grant. The radios are being used to detect faults on above- and below-ground distribution circuits. Some 50-60% of circuits lie below ground where detecting faults typically requires manual inspection. That means lifting manhole covers and even pump-outs by hazmat teams, Silva said.

“The problem is really bad. It’s a key pain point,” he said — and “it absolutely could be a significant new line of business. It’s always good as a small company to focus on something nobody else can do.”

Rather than serving utilities itself, On-Ramp would like to work with system integrators who will resell its technology and software, Silva said. The firm is funded to an undisclosed level by a private equity group and other investors. Silva declined to disclose revenue but said the firm is expecting to become profitable in mid-2012. Employment is up from 42 in April.

© 2011 Modern Markets Intelligence Inc., IMPORTANT: This article was reproduced from the February 7, 2011 issue of Smart Grid Today with the limited permission of the owner. Smart Grid Today is the worldwide daily journal of the modern utility industry. Please visit www.smartgridtoday.com/aboutyou for details.

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