In 2015, all families in the Netherlands will have a smart meter. This gas or electricity meter can be read and controlled from a distance. Technolution is developing a system where the energy used is not paid by a monthly bill, but purchased in advance, so-called prepaid energy.
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The account is on the prepaid server or on the smart meter at home. The consumer can raise this account manually or automatically using various methods of payment e.g. the internet or the Interactive Voice Response system.
Front office
The front office Technolution designed and developed is responsible for passing on meter readings as well as upgrading the account. The front office is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and can expand to millions of meters.
Control
In addition, a control team was arranged that check the soundness of the systems and connections 24/7 by means of active, automated checks.
The technologies applied are:
- Services in the prepaid system are hosted within a J2EE container
- Communication with smart meters via GPRS and ISDN
- Payments via iDEAL
- Apache and Tomcat for web hosting
- Java Server Pages, AJAX and CCS combined with JavaScript
- Cross browser compatible (Firefox 2.x and IE 5.5 and higher)
- SOAP and WE-* web services
- Opened up database using JDBC and SQL92
- Redhat Enterprise Linux 4