Mobile Solutions Continue to Drive AMR Growth

摘要

Chartwell research indicates that the AMR industry will continue to grow steadily for the foreseeable future. Chartwell estimates that, as of the close of 2003 calendar year, about 16.5 percent of meters in North America were equipped with an AMR device, a number that was expected to grow to 20 percent in 2004, according to Chartwell annual surveys of 100-plus utilities. In fact, around 40 percent of meters could have AMR by 2008. The levels of AMR system sophistication vary, but it is clear that more utilities continue to add AMR units to their meter population in an effort to meet their respective business cases. This is a trend that will continue to rise as well, perhaps even at greater rates than seen in the economic slump of the past three years. There is little doubt that AMR is now mainstream. About 95 percent of utilities are at least considering deploying AMR technology (see Figure 1). In addition, the shipments of three leading AMR vendors-Distribution Control Systems Inc. (DCSI), Itron Inc. and Hunt Technologies-increased 18.2 percent in 2003. Combined, the three vendors shipped 6.3 million modules in 2003, almost 1 million more than in 2002. The basic AMR questions most utilities now face are: How much AMR should we deploy? Should we deploy AMR throughout the service territory or just for niche applications, such as commercial/industrial and/or high-cost-to-read residential customers?