News releases

SAN ANTONIO, January 22, 2018 – Honeywell today announced that it is demonstrating the next generation of its electricity metering technology, the Alpha® 4 meter, at DistribuTECH®. The advanced Alpha 4 platform delivers the latest in metering technology, providing utilities greater flexibility, enhanced security and the ability to integrate future grid capabilities. The Alpha 4’s increased support for high-resolution metrology data, when combined with advanced analytics, enables new insights that can help predict peak usage and detect power outages and losses such as electricity diversion.

The Alpha 4 follows in Honeywell’s tradition of providing innovative, high-performance metering products to electricity, gas and water utilities. It is available for both residential as well as commercial and industrial applications using point-to-point or Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) communications. With its advanced capabilities, the new smart meter will facilitate a stronger smart grid infrastructure, enabling more efficient power distribution for utilities.

“The Alpha 4 meter leverages Honeywell’s legacy of metering and innovation to provide excellent metrology processing, market-leading memory capabilities, and a variety of other features,” said Gary Bennett, vice president and general manager of Smart Energy Electricity Americas, Honeywell Process Solutions. “All these capabilities help utilities accomplish their goal of delivering safe, reliable and accurate service to their customers.”

In addition to operational advancements, the Alpha 4 also increases support for consumer-facing applications. By offering improved granularity into consumption patterns, the Alpha 4 can help utilities and their customers better understand how they can reduce energy use and costs.

Key features of the Alpha 4 include a powerful processor, which provides rich data, reduces latency and offers utilities more channels. This enables the simultaneous measurement of a greater number of electrical instrumentation values, generating detailed data that can be turned into enhanced customer experiences. Thanks to expanded memory, the meter can store up to 365 days of data, and its flexible communications capability allows it to integrate any third-party communications modules.

Additional features of the Alpha 4 include Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) compatibility, aligned with the movement of wide area network (WAN), local area network (LAN), and Home Area Network (HAN) devices to this authentication protocol. The meter also offers American National Standard Institute (ANSI) C12.22 security standard compatibility, supporting the most advanced security protocol standard available today. Furthermore, it has a strong power supply with the ability to support today’s more powerful radio communications.