News
PCS Chosen to Host On Demand Response Project of Smart Thermostats
Iowa Municipal Utility Association (IAMU) was recently awarded $5 Million federal stimulus funds as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to support the installation of smart programmable thermostats in homes and businesses.
IAMU selected Professional Computer Systems, Co. (PCS) as the company to provide hosting services for the On Demand Response project. Participating utilities will simply access the software over the Internet in the PCS hosting center. PCS has purchased and installed three new servers specifically for the project.
The smart thermostat project is more than just load control. It provides the infrastructure for other Smart Grid technologies.
How does an installation of a smart thermostat benefit the customer and the utility? Annual electric and gas costs can be reduced up to 15 percent by installing a state-of-the-art Honeywell programmable thermostat which allows the utility to send a signal to the thermostat, and raise the air conditioning temperature by one or two degrees for a few hours during the hottest summer days. By doing so, the utility avoids purchasing energy at peak prices, which can be several times higher than normal rates.
Keeping energy dollars in the community, rather than sending them to power suppliers, coal companies and the railroads, helps the local economy. Reducing peak demand for electricity avoids the use of the least efficient generators on the grid, so it also helps the environment.
Kim Ingerslev, President and CEO of PCS, commented, “IAMU considered several companies in which to host the server and software. PCS has the expertise, a robust and secure hosting center, and is located in Iowa. PCS has been a supportive member of IAMU for many years. We are excited to be an important part of this project while helping the environment and the Iowa economy.”
To date, twenty municipal utilities will be participating in the project, with the possibility of more utilities joining in the future.
IAMU has rolled out the project with a new campaign called "2 Degrees 2 Save™." To read about the new program, click here.
To read more about the On Demand Response project, click here.
Borough of Kutztown Live with Utilit-e Connect
PCS is pleased to announce the Borough of Kutztown in Kutztown, PA, went live in March with Utilit-e Connect, PCS’ billing/CIS application. Borough of Kutztown (Kutztown) is a rural community located in East central Pennsylvania near Allentown. Kutztown serves approximately 2,400 customers for the Borough of Kutztown and Kutztown Municipal Authority, billing a complex group of multiple services including electric, water, sewer, garbage, cable, and Internet utilities.
Gina Wiand, Director of Marketing Communications and Customer Relations, was excited about the new Utilit-e Connect Cashiering module and commented, “What my staff and I enjoy most about Utilit-e Connect, unlike our old system, is we all have access to the same information in one program. As soon as you bring up an account in cashiering, all of the information about what the customer owes is right there in front of you, and if you need additional details, that information is easily accessible - there is no guess work. We don't have to cross-reference several different sources, and that saves us a significant amount of time over the course of a day. The system also tells us what amount of change is due, so we don't have to rely on our old-fashioned adding machine.”
Gina continues, “The fact that we enter each over-the-counter/phone transaction into Utilit-e Connect and it immediately posts to the account, has saved us countless hours of account posting. We used to accept payments and stack the payment stubs to the ceiling before posting them to the accounts which took hours on end. Utilit-e Connect has also alleviated the need to write up payment stubs when customers don't have their bill with them or if they pay over the phone. We used to manually write stubs for each of these transactions, as we needed a reference for what account to post.
Another nice feature that has expedited the cashiering process, is having the credit card option right there instead of having to log into a different program to enter the card information.
We also like the detailed receipts that print from the system instead of those pesky hand-written ones! We have found that the cashiering batches have made sorting the days' payments much more efficient.”
PCS has enjoyed working with the staff at Borough of Kutztown and looks forward to future projects.
