Mexico’s largest utility deploys solid state electricity meters

Mexico — (METERING.COM) — March 9, 2007 – The Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), Mexico’s largest electricity utility, has placed an order for 25,000 SENTINEL solid-state electricity meters from Itron. CFE covers the whole of Mexico, with more than 20 million customers and 163 power-generating plants.

The agreement represents Itron’s largest-ever international sale of the SENTINEL meter. Beyond the initial 25,000 meters, CFE also has the option to purchase an additional 37,000 units over the next year.

SENTINEL meters are used for commercial and industrial metering applications by electric utilities throughout the world. C&I metering represents approximately 60 per cent of CFE’s annual billing, making meter accuracy, reliability and advanced functionality essential for the utility to meet its business and customer service objectives.

Over the past year, Itron’s SENTINEL meter has been recertified and approved to comply with CFE’s stringent technical metering requirements. These trials were administered by LAPEM, a testing division of CFE.

The meters sold to CFE are designed to allow the utility to easily migrate to automatic meter reading. For example, it is possible to add on GPRS modems, and integration with Itron software solutions like MV-90xi or Enterprise Edition meter data management.