Leading the charge toward integrated AMI

In collaboration with seven major utility companies, SAP AG today announced a joint effort to solve one of the most important technology challenges facing the utilities industry over the next decade: integration of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) with enterprise technology. AMI is the technical foundation for the industry’s broader Smart Grid vision aimed at improving energy efficiency and grid reliability. SAP and the participating utility companies have formed the SAP AMI Lighthouse Council to address AMI from the back office to the meter, with the objective of integrating the SAP for Utilities solution to market-leading AMI Systems.

The formation of the SAP AMI Lighthouse Council demonstrates a commitment to a new AMI approach that aims to achieve integration of end-to-end processes between the meter and the backend systems and to reduce a company’s total cost of ownership for AMI infrastructure. Efficient and scalable end-to-end integration is fundamental to both the success of utility AMI initiatives and to delivering shareholder value for the sizeable investment that AMI requires.

The SAP AMI Lighthouse Council – comprised of CenterPoint Energy, CLP Power Hong Kong Limited, Consumers Energy, Energy East, Florida Power & Light, Oklahoma Gas & Electric and Public Service Electric & Gas – has been shaping the integration of SAP solutions with AMI solutions for business processes, including customer relationship and billing and enterprise asset management. The SAP AMI Lighthouse Council also includes several strategic vendors, eMeter, Itron and OSIsoft. These vendors offer meter data unification and synchronization solutions that act as a powerful hub for meter and event data between AMI systems and the downstream SAP solutions.