A smart grid communications provider, Tantalus recently announced one of its longtime customers’ success with conservation and peak reduction initiatives using the Tantalus’ end-to-end WAN/LAN/HAN communications system.

A long term customer of Tantalus, Chatham-Kent Hydro (CKH) is committed to deliver environmental friendly services to its customers. In a press release, Tantalus informed that CKH has achieved 100 percent success in the implementation of time-of-use programs, which have been designed to shape energy loads, for residential and small commercial customers.

According to Tantalus, CKH was one of the few utilities, who have been able to meet this aggressive target. The success in the most part can be attributed to Tantalus’ TUNet (Tantalus Utility Network) communications system.

As part of a larger government mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and delay capital expenditures for additional generation facilities, CKH has installed over 2,400 TUNet load management switches. The switches control air conditioners, pool pumps and other home, commercial and industrial energy loads. CKH has also deployed several hundred TUNet-controlled Smart Thermostats. This allows the company to manage home HVAC use for customers who opt into the program. In the release, CKH revealed its plans about doubling the number of TUNet load management switches this year.

In addition to helping meet the government regulations, the Tantalus TUNet system helped the utility company make consumers more aware of their energy usage through online energy data visibility. This considerably helped in changing consumer behavior and thus reduced energy demand.

“Robust, rock-solid, real time communications are the key to growing a Smart Grid. Those who chose communications networks that only met the minimum standards are now struggling to deploy capabilities beyond smart meters. From the very start of developing our Smart Grid, we knew that it all boils down to communications’ performance. Tantalus’ system has proven its ability to evolve and grow with our community’s needs, and we credit their technology for much of our success in the Peak Saver program,” Director of Metering & Technical Services for Chatham-Kent Hydro, Hugh Bridgen noted in a statement.

In 2007, CKH won the Chartwell Best Practice Award for Metering in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) category. Due to the evolvable nature of Tantalus’ network, CKH was able to grow its Smart Grid beyond AMI without additional major infrastructure investment, the company officials acknowledged in the release.

In July, Tantalus announced that the City of Auburn, Ind., has selected Tantalus to provide its Smart Grid communications backbone. Tantalus' technology will support the City of Auburn's plans for an evolvable, fully automated metering solution.

 Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.