Irby Circuit

Technical Products Group
by Sonny Carlisle, Irby Technical Product Specialist

With nearly 80 years of history supplying electrical equipment, Stuart C. Irby Company has helped our utility customers build the electrical infrastructure in the South Central United States. During this time we have been, and continue to be, very involved with understanding, supporting, and servicing new and evolving technologies in the products used on the electrical distribution system. In keeping with this tradition, Irby is committed to providing our customers with highly skilled support available through our Technical Products Group. We offer a dynamic team and expansive line of technical products to keep you current with the latest information and technology. This group is committed to working with you to offer solutions to the technical challenges associated with improving service to your customers while effectively managing your costs, system expansion and maintenance. This unique group spans the entire breadth of our company’s service area and consists of knowledgeable technical specialists devoted to offering you the technical expertise you require to get the job done.

How it Works

A major focus of our Technical Products Group is Metering and Metering Systems. We have had much success through the years offering products from the bread and butter household single-phase meter to commercial poly- phase meters and high-end revenue metering. As technology has advanced rapidly, we continue to stay on top of the developments in meter technology and share our expertise with our customers. One of the ways we do this is to work in partnership with key suppliers that are driving innovation in emerging technology.

System Management

A very good example of one of these partnerships is our relationship with Hunt Technologies. Together, we offer Automated Meter Reading (AMR) systems to our electric utility customers to help improve their customer service and revenue collection while reducing operating costs.

AMR systems are designed to do more than provide automation to the electric utility companies meter reading practices. Although a substantial investment, a tailored study can show a very quick payback that can be achieved with a fully deployed system. An AMR system - now known as an END-Point Management System - can communicate metering values and system integrity news from remote points around the utilities system back to a central system to be viewed and evaluated. The data collected by the AMR system can also be integrated with the customer billing system for maximum cost management and data reliability. To provide the highest value, we will couple our meter supplier with the AMR system provider to provide a complete metering and communication package. As we further expand our technical product offerings, we will enhance our capabilities to offer packaged solutions; meters, intelligent end-points, communications, and tailored control and status collection software. Also, an emerging trend in the municipal market is the desire for AMR (or end-point management) and SCADA for gas and water, as well as electricity. We will strive to ensure all of our technical products have the capability of supporting gas, water and electric distribution systems.

Irby focuses on adding three new companies
to its technical products menu.

Cost Savings

Nighthawk Systems manufactures remote controlled “on/off” devices used extensively by many industries. These products are capable of receiving remote signals from almost any location to activate a switch to reboot computers, or power on/off devices, etc. Nighthawk manufactures a specific product for use by the utility industry which allows for remote disconnect/reconnect of common household utility meters. We have negotiated an agreement to market and offer these specific products in all our Irby territories. Learn more about how utilities are using this product as a cost savings device which can be placed in remote locations requiring extensive travel time to connect or disconnect a service.

Control and Integration Capabilities

More and more utilities are now incorporating intelligent communication devices in their substation and field equipment. BTE offers an extensive scalable software package for smaller utilities that allows the selection and implementation of specific software components for system control and interrogation as well as full scale energy management. BTE’s modular software component structure offers utilities the ability to build a system based on the implementation of discrete software modules. This allows the customer to better financially manage the investment while still implementing those technologies that are most important to its continued success.

Communications/Radio Systems

One of the first vital components of any intelligent infrastructure is the communication system. In utility control and interrogation applications, data is the primary information that is transmitted and received by the components of the system. Whether the application is to transfer metering data collected from a remote utility site to a main offi ce computer for billing applications, the control of a substation capacitor bank, or total control and interrogation of a remote substation, reliable data communications is a necessity. Radius Communications, a Data Packet Radio manufacturer, has expanded its primary operations from the UK to the U.S. market. The data packet radio system uses intelligent data modems that communicate via an aerial antenna system that is easily installed and maintained by the utility company. This platform can support many applications, including AMR and SCADA. The primary benefit of this medium for data communication is the elimination of costly and sometimes unreliable communications components prevalent in the market today. The Radius system is an economical, cost effective system that is much easier to install than other fiber systems.

We’ve established a good base of technical support for our utility customers through our extensive metering experience and we look forward to integrating these new technical products into our mix of offerings for our utility customers. Visit www.irby.com/utilities for more information.