Presque Isle Electric & Gas (PIE&G) Chooses OATI’s webSmartEnergy AMIoT™

After a successful pilot, OATI is pleased to announce Presque Isle Electric & Gas (PIE&G) has chosen OATI to fully roll out a LoRa-based network infrastructure, including OATI’s webSmartEnergy AMIoT™ Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Head End system to collect electric and gas meter readings from 46,000 meters across its 2,300 square mile service territory.

OATI AMIoT™ is a disruptive AMI technology, poised to help cooperative utilities become leaders in the next generation of smart metering. This next generation, IoT-based AMI packaged solution utilizes a LoRa-based network for the communication backhaul, encompassing a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) open protocol that provides bidirectional communications to the meters, and other devices, on the IoT network.

AMIoT™ is a highly cost-effective solution that also offers great flexibility to support a variety of use cases beyond AMI. The LoRa network takes advantage of open wireless and messaging communication protocols that allows utilities to add a multitude of LoRa-based devices such as smart agriculture, asset tracking, distribution automation, load management, and other sensing and control devices on the same network.

Under this AMIoT™ project, PIE&G will deploy a LoRa-based, two-way communication network, across its territory. OATI will initially provide propagation services, in order to identify where low-cost LoRa gateways, which communicate with meters and other field assets in a “star of stars” configuration, should be placed for maximum read efficiency. PIE&G will be able to read their existing gas meters enabled with ERT modules through the LoRA network, eliminating the need to replace gas meter hardware, and reducing overall project cost. Concurrently, OATI will deploy the AMIoT Head-End solution, fully integrated to the customer’s Customer Care & Billing, and other solutions to communicate with and control the LoRa gateways, meters, and modules. The OATI webSmartEnergy AMIoT™ service will be provided in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, hosted within the OATI Cloud. PIE&G users will be able to access the webSmartEnergy AMIoT Head-End through a web-based User Interface (UI).

“Presque Isle Electric & Gas is eager to bring our members the increased efficiencies that OATI’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure will provide, improving safety, reliability and cost-effectiveness,” said Tom Sobeck, president and CEO.

“We are honored to provide our LoRa-based network infrastructure to Presque Isle Electric & Gas,” said Dr. Sasan Mokhtari, President and CEO of OATI. “Through this simple and cost effective solution, we can help PIE&G bring their grid into the future.”

About PIE&G
PIE&G is a not-for-profit, electric, and natural gas distribution utility that provides energy services to over 40,000 members/owners in nine counties in Northeast Michigan. Throughout their county service territory, PIE&G serves approximately 12,400 natural gas meters and 33,650 electric meters. Learn more at https://www.pieg.com/.

About OATI
OATI provides innovative solutions that simplify, streamline, and empower the operational tasks required in today’s energy commerce and Smart Grid. Serving more than 2,200 customers in North America, OATI successfully deploys and hosts diverse mission-critical solutions committed to industry standards and stringent security guidelines.

OATI (www.oati.com) is a leading provider of Smart Grid, Energy Trading and Risk Management, Transmission Scheduling, Congestion Management, Distribution, and Market Management products and services. OATI is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with offices in California, Punjab, Telangana, and Singapore. For more information, please contact sales@oati.net.