Wellington company powers up the electricity market

Internet-hosted real-time energy information solution should help local company onto the international stage

A new electricity meter for the commercial time interval market is expected to double the market size with its lower cost.

Wellington-based Energy Intellect, which develops and manufactures internet-hosted, real-time energy information solutions, will introduce the meter as part of its iE2 (Interactive Energy Enterprise) platform.

Time interval data loggers are used for revenue metering and sub-metering energy management applications.

IE2 is designed to service the energy market and the energy management requirements of deregulated markets, maximising interactivity between the two.

The company was formed in 1994 and now has 82% of the interval data market in New Zealand, and 25% of the Australian market.

New Zealand uptake of time interval measurement of electricity consumption has been limited but this is likely to change over the next few years, based on a mandated programme in the Australian state of Victoria.

There, it is planned by 2013 to roll out 2.2 million time interval meters, beginning with the highest energy consumers and moving down to domestic customers.

It’s being seen worldwide as something of a trial, says Energy Intellect CEO Nick Lewis. “Over time, a ‘smart box’ could be the gateway to a house through internet access.”

Energy Intellect is one of about a dozen manufacturers worldwide of time interval systems and the sole one in New Zealand. It currently derives around a third of its revenue from Australia and has plans to move into Asia and the US through franchising.

“Our differentiator is that we are the only one with an end-to-end solution,” Lewis says.

The iE2 platform operates at three levels: it collects, manages and delivers energy usage data; provides targeted interfaces to energy suppliers and users, respectively, and is a collaborative environment for suppliers and users to work together in demand-side management.

The company has 45 employees, approximately half of whom are software developers.

They work in three distinct areas: database (SQLServer); the platform engine (Java) and user interfaces.

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