Outage management through AMR systems using an intelligent data filter

Automatic meter reading (AMR) is the remote collection of consumption data from customers’ utility meters over telecommunication, radio, power-line and other links. Electric utilities are exploring the usage of AMR data for outage management for distribution systems. Signals from automated meters can provide additional information in the outage detection and determination processes as well as restoration phases of outage management. However due to its low quality, AMR outage data cannot be fed directly into outage management systems. This paper details the development of an intelligent information filter for automated metering systems. The filter prevents false outage notifications in addition to improving the quality of outage data. The nature of wireless communication in the AMR system introduces uncertainty issues in the query process. This uncertainty has been modeled using probabilistic and fuzzy engineering techniques. The filter has also been tested using historical outage data.