Smart meters can do much more than provide a stream of measurements. But here is a catch: operators must know how they work. Here is a story to illustrate.

Client installed a smart gas meter for a commercial kitchen. One year later gas supply is blocked.

Meter blocked gas supply, it must be at fault, right? Right? – Could not be more wrong.

Meter did what it is supposed to do AND blocked supply to prevent a huge trouble, possibly deaths.

Here is the story from Dennis Kariuki from CREOS:

The fault that had been reported was that the meter was not passing gas and kitchen staff had been complaining whenever they used the gas equipment. Its something that had been going on for a week.

We troubleshot the meter, and we found an alarm that was causing the transducer valves to close. This only happens when there is an under/overflow of gas or leakage as a safety precaution. We inspected the distribution line and to our surprise, there were several points gas was leaking from. No smells. No hisses. We adjusted these areas and the valves in the meter have never locked 2 weeks later.

It did not require hi-tech tools to find leaks. Anybody could have done it. The trick is that ‘Anybody’ must understand what meter does.

A great confirming a cornerstone concept of Energy Management:

If you do energy management right, then your benefits will exceed value of saved energy by far.

This story was first published at LinkedIn by Dennis – here.