GB2400481A

GB2400481A - Method of crediting a multiple utility meter

Info

Publication number: GB2400481A
Application number: GB0308076A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Jeffrey Brian Cooper; Ronald Warwick
Original assignee: Siemens Energy Services Ltd
Current assignee: Siemens Energy Services Ltd
Priority date: 2003-04-08
Filing date: 2003-04-08
Publication date: 2004-10-13
Anticipated expiration: 2023-04-08
Also published as: GB0308076D0; GB2400481B

Abstract

A method of crediting a multiple utility meter using a smartcard is characterised by crediting the card at a single point of sale via a single transaction. The card may then be used to credit at least two different utility meters, eg. gas or electricity. The smartcard is programmed to apportion a single credit, eg Ü10, to each utility and the credit sum is split according to optional predefined rules. The optional rules may be apportioning credit to a predefined ratio, based on a number of card insertions, or based on dynamic customer usage. Point of sale terminals, dealing solely with gas format data, can be used to credit electricity data to the card since the card is programmed to convert between the two data formats. The smartcard has a portion for storing customer specific information and can also be used to pass meter status data from the meter, via the point of sale terminal, to the supplier.

Description

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MULTIPLE UTILITY METER AND METHOD

This invention relates to an apparatus and method of crediting a customer with utilities, such as gas and electricity, in a single transaction.

It is known to use various means, such as a key or smart-card, to store and dispense credits for use in key/card readable electricity and gas meters. A customer with such a card (e.g. electricity smart-card) can buy units of electricity (e.g. ú5) at a point of sale (POS), typically a shop, whereby the equivalent number of units of electricity credit is added to the key/card. (The point of sale would normally include a terminal). At home the customer inserts the card into the electricity meter which has associated electronics to read the key/card, register the credits, display and dispense credits. Similar systems exist for gas meters also.

A problem with such systems is that a separate system has to be implemented for each utility e.g. one for gas and one for electricity.

This perforce requires a duplication of all steps for both the customer, and the point of sales people. The customer has to keep two cards, and is required to re-credit each.

ce. À.e ce e. e.e It is an object of the invention to provide means and a method of payment for two or more utilities using the same card which involves only a single transaction. Moreover it is a further object of the invention to provide such a card and system which is compatible with currently used systems, e.g. points of sale.

Although cards which can be used for both gas and electricity have been proposed these essentially register separate gas and electricity transactions. The use of a smart card being able to operate in a single transaction has not been up till now realisable or thought of due to features which have been overcome in the present invention.

The invention will now described by way of example only and with reference to the following figures: Figure 1 shows a embodiment of the invention with focus on the customer end of the overall utility chain.

Figure 2 shows a comprehensive schematic representation of a current system of utility supply.

Figure 1 shows a simple embodiment of the invention in relation to the customer. The customer has a smart card 1, which adapted to be inserted into both an electricity meter 2 and a gas meter 3 to credit electricity or gas. It also contains an integrated circuit to provide he s: e. Àe c:e . . À storage and functionality. When the customer requires to credit his electricity and/or gas meter he can take the single smart card and insert it into a point of sale terminal 4, e.g. in a shop and requests ú10 of energy. The card is credited with ú10 in a single transaction.

S Details of how this is achieved will be explained with further detail later.

On returning home the card can be used to top up either or both of the meters; gas and/or electricity, each of which has a slot 5 to receive the card (in addition to the POS terminal). With regard to the question of allocating credit between the meters, the card includes algorithms which provides means to do this. Thus the card is more than a data carrier, but includes functional software. Example of embedded methods on the cards to apportion credit to different meters are listed below: a) predefined ratio In this system electricity and gas meters are credited at a fixed ratio in terms of monetary value of the gas/electricity. For example the fixed ratio may be 4:1 with respect to gas: electricity. In this instance if the card is credited with ú5, when inserted into the gas meter, the gas meter apparatus will take ú4 worth of credit and update itself with ú4 worth of gas and the electricity meter will likewise take ú1.

b) based on number of card insertions me ce a.. c' .e s. . This system allows the user to dictate what proportion of the energy credit bought is loaded into the electricity or gas meter by the number of times it is inserted into the respective meter. For example it may be set up that every time the card is inserted into a meter ú1 is debited from the card and added to that particular meter. Thus if the person bought ú5 of energy credit and wanted to only top up his electricity meter he would insert and retract the card 5 times. In another example a ú10 credit may be allocated such that it credits any meter each time it is inserted up to four times, with values of ú4, ú4, ú1, and ú1.

c) dynamic customer usage In this system the electricity and gas meters are credited at a particular ratio in a similar fashion to a) except the ratio is determined according to the historical usage of the customer. An example is if the customer has used twice as much electricity than gas in the last year, the ratio of electricity to gas is 2:1.

The invention also includes using a combination of the above e.g. first insertion utilises algorithm (a), second insertion algorithm (b).

As the single energy credit is allocated for separate gas and electricity fuel use the amount allocated is held in memory on the smartcard and passed back to the point of sale. The next time at the POS, this information is received by the utility for accurate customer Àe c.: À À' À:e À:. e. : ce. ee.

accounting for each fuel type. The way this is done is explained in detail later.

In order to explain further how the invention is implemented, figure 2 is included which shows a complete overview of how current utility card systems operate in relation to not just the meter customer and POS but also the utility suppliers and co-ordinators. This will facilitate explaining the changes which are made to the system which allows the invention to be practically implemented In a non-monopolistic energy market market such as in the UK at the present time, there exists a number of energy suppliers 6. These liase with an infrastructure provider 7, whose task is to provide and tailor cards for customers as well as coordinating the suppliers with network service providers 8. Currently in the UK there are 3 network service providers whose function is to collect money, provide billing and liase with suppliers and infrastructure providers. The network service provider further contracts with point of sales operator's.

Interaction between the customer, card point of sale and meters is as described above.

It should be noted that it is possible in the future and that in some countries the network service provider and the infrastructure service provider may be one and the same, and any functionality described in this application may be interchanged between them and they may be considered one and the same. is

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Operation of the current system will be described with reference to figure 2. The parallelograms in this figure represent data.

The infrastructure provider forwards a data file 9 which includes a list of tariffs; i.e. multiple tariff blocks, collated from the energy suppliers. These data are sent on a regular basis, e.g. once a day to the point of sales. At the point of sale, the smart card is updated with any new tariff data e.g. if there is a change of price.

Also at the point of sale the appropriate tariff block 10 is loaded onto the card which is subsequently passed and read by the meter with the credit transaction. Formats of tariff data (blocks) are currently different for electricity and gas at the POS.

Additionally the smart card has a portion dedicated to customer specific information and includes a customer specific ID. In this way customer specific messages and data 11 can also be registered on a particular customer's card such as extra credit if a card has been lost, or to set meter settings for individual customers. These data are generated from the infrastructure provider and passed to the POS by the network service provider. The POS then, according to whether the identification numbers tally, determines whether there is any such :. tele: tete '. I. :..

message to be loaded onto the smartcard. This is then passed to the meter also, along with the credit and tariff data.

Data also flows in the opposite direction. This includes acknowledgement data 12 by the meter to the card of customer specific messages which are passed up via the POS and network service provider and/or the infrastructure provider. Additionally "meter dump data" 13 also pass up this route. This data relates to meter status including meter readings and status report of the accounting parameters (e.g. current credit and debit) for each meter, date/time. Hereinafter the term "dump data" relates to any of such data. Formats for this data are currently different for the meters and points of sale for gas or electricity.

Adaptation to the current invention In order to integrate into the above system as well as further be able to operate with existing systems, further functionality has been built into the smart card of the invention to enable the card to be credited in a single transaction for use with more than one utility. This functionality differentiates the smart card from prior art in that it includes software to act and process the data rather acting as a mere data carrier. Moreover changes have also been made to the manner in which data is passed to the smart card.

e. te: A '.. :e À À It is desirable for the system according to the invention to be compatible with existing meters and points of sale. Consequently in a preferred embodiment, the gas and electricity tariffs, before they are loaded onto the smartcard, are combined in a compressed manner such that they form a "single" tariff. In other words, the two tariffs are encrypted into a format which is effectively a single combined tariff which is compatible (i.e. in the same format in terms data block size) with an existing format; e.g. that for gas. This ensures that only a single effective energy transaction takes place.

The smart card has functionality to decrypt (decompress) the encrypted (compressed) data into gas and electricity tariffs which are subsequently passed to gas and electricity meters respectively, such that it is presentable in the correct format for the meters.

Compression algorithms are well known to the skilled man. The algorithms thus enable this "dual fuel" energy credit to be used in existing non "dual fuel" gas and electricity smartcard prepayment meters.

As far as customer specific messages are concerned, the infrastructre provider preferably uses a single utility format e.g. the gas format of messages for both electricity and gas prepayment, i.e. electricity messages are encoded into a gas type format using some of the unused gas message types. The point of sale transfers any messages onto the appropriate customer smartcard as normal. The smartcard converts any electricity messages encoded in gas format back to À c r C À C À

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electricity format before passing onto the meter for processing. The meter shall process messages as normal and pass acknowledgements back to the smartcard. The smartcard shall convert any electricity acknowledgements into gas format. On the next transaction at an outlet the point of sale passes up acknowledgements as normal. The /network service provider passes these data to the infrastructure provider where the acknowledgements are provided by decryption separately into those for electricity and gas.

Similarly, in a preferred embodiment, each meter writes their respective meter dump data to card as normal and the card uses standard compression algorithms to compress gas and electricity dump data into a single utility format, e.g. a "gas" sized meter dump.

The smartcard will add into these data the details of the credit split between gas and electricity. The point of sale then transfers the e.g. "gas" sized dump data to the infrastructure provider via the network service provider, which decompresses the meter dump data to decompress to extract separate electricity and gas meter dump details. Of course this could be done alternatively at the point of sale.

The infrastructure provider uses the details of the energy transaction credit split to allow the suppliers to reconcile the payments made for the separate fuels.

As mentioned, although in the example the system various data are compressed into single "gas" format data block, the data could : :. : 'e. ce: : ce. :: :: ce :. ce: .. Àe equally be compressed to electricity format. The important point is that it is compressed into a single utility format to be compatible with current meters/systems in terms of e.g. data block size, i.e. a standard format.

The use of compressing/encrypting/converting data relating to a standard format of a particular utility (electricity) to another utility is also useful where only one meter is used. For example, there may be an extensive existing infrastructure for use of gas smart cards in terms of e.g. infrastructure provider, network service providers and point of sales. Any, or all of these components of an existing system, may deal exclusively for use with gas smart cards and appropriate gas meters and no other utility e.g. electricity. As such any data which is passed to or from the gas smart card is in "gas" format. The inventors have determined that such an existing system may be utilised for electricity smart-card use, even for those customers who do not have gas. Electricity data is converted to "gas data", i.e. converted (encrypted) to gas data format, and passed to a smartcard.

The smartcard has means to convert back (decrypt) the "gas data" form of the electricity data to "electricity format " data which is thus in a format readable by an existing electricity meter. Conversely electricity meter dump data are converted by the card to "gas format" meter dump data and passed to the point of sale, which can cope with such a format. The POS then passes these data to the network service provider/infrastructure provider which converts back the electricity t. :. À. . t: : . A: .: .: À À . meter dump data which in "gas format" to "electricity format" or has means to extract the pertinent electricity dump data for the "gas" formatted data. Such a system has the advantage that existing point of sales terminals which only deal with "gas format" data do not need to be changed and can deal with electricity also, using such a described smartcard having conversion functionally. If the conversion from one standard format (e.g gas) to another standard format (e.g. electricity) takes place at the infrastructure supplier, then the network service providers do also not require any changes.

Also although in the examples the systems and methods are described with relation to electricity and gas as the utilities, the invention is equally applicable to any combination of gas, electricity, water, subscription TV channel and such like.

Although the term smartcard has been used in the description and claims below, it is hereby defined in this specification as any key, card or other devices using prepayment such like which can be inserted into utility meters and includes the disclosed functionality.

Claims

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1. A method of crediting at least two utility meters, each of said meters having means to receive a smartcard, said smartcard; receiving data when inserted into a point of sale terminal, said data relating to a single transaction, crediting said card with a single credit which can be used in a plurality of meters of each utility, said card including functionality to apportion credit to any of said meters.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the plurality of utility tariffs to be sent the card are compressed so as to form said single energy tariff.

3. A method as claimed in claim 2 wherein said credit transaction data is compressed into as a single standard tariff block compatible with the format for a standard single utility smartcard.

4. A method as claimed in claim 3 wherein said tariff block is compatible with a standard gas tariff block.

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5. A method as claimed in claims 1 to 4 wherein said card includes an algorithm to which allows allocation of credit to any of said utilities in a predetermined fashion.

6. A method as claimed in claim 5 wherein said credit is allocated to different utility meters as a fixed ratio.

7. A method as claimed in claim 5 wherein said credit is allocated to said meters in a variable ratio based of previous proportional usage of the respective utilities.

8. A method as claimed in claim 5 wherein said credit is allocated between the meters based upon the number of respective insertions of the card in each of said meter.

9. A method as claimed in claim 5 which includes a combination of any of the methods of claims 6, 7, and or 8.

10. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the smartcard compresses data relating to meter dump data for each utility meter to a standard single meter dump format and which is passed via a point of sale to an infrastructure provider and/or a network service provider which decompresses it to extract meter dump data pertaining to each utility.

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11. A method as claimed in any of claims 1 to 10 wherein said plurality of utilities is selected from any of the following: gas, electricity, water, telephone and metered television.

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12. A smartcard adapted to be inserted into, and to be compatible with a plurality of meters of different utilities, and having means to apportion credit or debit to each meter.

13. A smartcard as claimed in claim 12 wherein said credit is apportioned to said plurality of utility meters as a fixed ratio.

14. A smartcard as claimed in claim 12 wherein said credit is apportioned to said meters in a variable ratio based of previous proportional usage of the utilities.

15. A smartcard as claimed in claim 12 wherein said credit is allocated between the meters based upon the number of respective insertions of the smartcard in the meters.

16. A smartcard as claimed in any of claims 12 to 16 having means receive compressed tariff data in the form of a single standard tariff block from a point of sale, said compressed data relating to the tariffs of a plurality of utilities, and said card having means to decompress said data to formats for use for each of said utility meter.

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17. A smartcard has claimed in any of claims 12 to 17 having means to compresses meter dump data to a standard single meter dump format.

18. A smartcard as claimed in any of claims 12 to 18 wherein said plurality of utilities comprises any combination of the following: gas, electricity, water and metered television.

19. A method of crediting a first utility comprising crediting a smart card at a point of sale, where said credit data are in the standard format of second utility credit data.

20. A method as claimed in claim 19 wherein said smart card IS converts said credit data from the format of said second utility data to a format for said first utility data; the method including inserting said smartcard to a meter of said first utility.

21. A method as claimed in claim 19 or 20 wherein meter dump data of said first utility are converted by said smart card into a the format of said second utility, said point of sale receiving said data in the format of the second utility.

22. A method as claimed in any of claims 20 to 21 wherein the point of sales passes said meter dump data in the format of said c'. et: .e.. :.

ce. e À second utility to a network supplier and/or infrastructure provide which extracts the first utility meter dump data.

23. A method as claimed in claims 19, 20 or 21 wherein said second utility is gas and first utility is electricity.

24. A smartcard having means to receive credit data from a point of sale, said data being in a standard format of a first utility and having means to a convert said credit data to the standard format of a second utility, for presentation to a meter of said second utility.

25. A smartcard as claimed in claim 24 having means to convert meter dump data in the standard format of the second utility to the standard format of meter dump data of said first utility and to present this to a point of sale.

26. A smartcard as claimed in claim 24 or 25 wherein said first utility is gas and said second utility is electricity.