Overview
Every boat at every slip in your marina uses resources you are charged for and would like to track. Traditional meters provide accumulated usage, but you have to physically walk down each dock read them. Every month, or more, and every time a transient boat spends sometime connected. The numbers read must be hand copied and carried to your office to be compared to past records to calculated the portion of each boat owner's utilities.
An automatic meter reading system removes this labor. It can track usage over any increment of time for every boat at every slip, day and night. It can on demand provide you with instantaneous power and other utilities usage and post its calculations to an account maintained on a distant computer system which handles your billing for you. It knows when a boat connects to the slip, and when it leaves. A transient can be billed for any fraction of time usage with a bill displayed or printed at any time or place.
Technical Description
Our system consists of self-contained electronic and electronically read power
meters with optional displays that transmit utility readings using an industry
international standard, (BACnet), network. A simple pair of wires interconnect
each pedestal while running the length from one end of the dock to the other.
The far end of this wire pair connects to a small wireless data gateway porting
all interconnected meter's data directly onto the internet. There are no wires
leaving the dock to any other point.
Built into each power meter node are circuits to provide your marina with the means to meet both the National Electric Code (NEC) power system and the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) code power system for protection from AC ground faults and (optionally) DC gavanic corrosion as well as minimizing the risk of electrocution, fire and other property damage that could be caused by your marina's power system.
Your accounting methods and marina layout and billing cycles will be provided for with software tailored to your business needs. This software will automatically read the information it requires from the networked meters, wherever they are. This accounting program can reside on one of your own computers, or you can use an internet connected computer with a browser to logon to a remote server we maintain. This server would maintain all your marina's utility data.
Engineering for this system provided by Datran Corp., New Haven, Connecticut. An automatic meter reading and accounting software company for 20 years. Selling its equipment to customers such as the City of New York. Network design, and internet gateways have been designed to BACnet (Building Automation and Control Network) engineering standards used in products world wide.